Hotel Constance from “Café Society”

It is always such a thrill to discover that a beloved restaurant, building, bar or boutique I wasn’t aware was a filming location has actually appeared onscreen. Such was the case with Hotel Constance, one of my favorite Pasadena-area lodgings. You’ve seen me talk about the place before in My Guide to L.A. – Hotels post back in 2015 (it’s number 9 on the list). I’ve stayed there with my family on numerous occasions and have always gushed about it, but somehow was unaware it boasted any film cred. So I was ecstatic to recently come across a mention on The Woody Allen Pages website that the locale was featured in the 2016 drama Café Society. A bit more digging led to some additional onscreen appearances, so I figured it was high time I dedicate a post to the place.

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Hotel Constance originally opened to the public on December 3rd, 1926. Commissioned by and named for Pasadena entrepreneur Constance V. Perry, the seven-story Mediterranean Revival-style property was the city’s most modern lodging at the time. You can check out what it looked like in its early days here.

Perry sold the hotel, as well as the adjoining one-story commercial building situated next to it on Colorado Boulevard, in 1930 in order to dedicate her time to other business ventures. At some point, the property was transformed into a retirement home known as the Pasadena Manor, a role it held for the next several decades. (While I am unsure of exactly when the retirement-home transition took place, the earliest mention of the Manor I could find on newspapers.com was in 1970.)

Though I lived just a few blocks from the building for several years and walked past it often, it was not until it was sold to Singpoli, a Hong Kong-based real estate investment firm, in 2007 and plans to revitalize it were talked about that I first took notice. I’ll never forget walking by the boarded-up structure one sunny afternoon and becoming completely enthralled with the historic images of the place pasted in the front windows, along with the placard announcing that the property would soon be restored and turned into a hotel once again.

It was thrilling to pass by the site in the years that followed and witness the new developments regularly taking place.

Amazingly, because no major renovations had ever been done to the property prior to the 2007 sale, much of its original detailing was intact, albeit covered over with carpet, plaster and wallpaper. Preservation architect Peyton Hall, who spearheaded the restoration, told the Pasadena Star News, “The interior of the lobby has (green-painted) paneled columns, and the mirrors on them are not original. The original terra-cotta tiles were covered with vinyl tile, and we’ve uncovered them . . . and the coffered ceiling and the stairway will all remain.” You can see what the lobby looked like mid-renovation here. An image of that exact same area in its post-rehab state is pictured below.

After the $60-million revamp, the hotel opened to much fanfare as the DusitD2 Constance Pasadena on July 31st, 2014. An arm of the Thai-based Dusit International, it was the luxury hospitality company’s first U.S. lodging.

The hotel’s interior aesthetic, envisioned by Hong Kong designer Joey Ho, is ultra-modern with nods to its historic past.

Check out that coffered ceiling!

The adjacent commercial building also underwent a large-scale renovation. While most of it was razed, the original storefronts were preserved. Per an Arcadia Historical Society post, “The six retail stores attached to the hotel had prior face-lifts and were scheduled for demolition. When the surfaces were removed, however, statuettes on columns were uncovered on the original façade. These statuettes were extensively damaged when someone literally took a hammer and knocked off pieces so that they could be boarded up, with a new storefront.” Thankfully, they were repaired and incorporated into the new design, which you can see almost completed in the Google Street View imagery below.

A second tower with additional guest rooms, a fitness center, meeting space, and a rooftop pool, hot tub, sun deck and bar, was also just completed last year.

In all, the property boasts 136 rooms and suites, a Cal-Asian eatery known as Perry’s Restaurant, the swanky Blue Room cocktail lounge, and many modern appointments including in-room iPads that control lighting and on which guests can order room service or read daily newspaper publications.

At some point, Dusit International ceased operating the site and today it is known simply as Hotel Constance. My family has stayed at the lodging numerous times and I can honestly say it is one of the best hotels we have ever had the pleasure of checking into. As I recounted in My Guide to L.A. post, during one of our visits, while the bellman was walking us to our room, my dad mentioned to my mom that he had forgotten to pick up a special cereal he likes on the way into town. The bellman overheard and, incredibly, said he would be happy to go pick it up for us – at no charge! I’ve never known a hotel to offer that kind of service, but at the Constance, they do. Sure enough, not 15 minutes later, my dad had his special cereal in hand! It truly is a remarkable place.

In Café Society, Hotel Constance portrays the supposed Wilshire Boulevard office of talent agent Phil Stern (Steve Carell), who Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) visits in the hopes of getting a job. For the shoot, filmmakers made use of the building’s Mentor Avenue side.

Only the exterior of the hotel appears in the film. Per The Woody Allen Pages, interiors were lensed at the Brooklyn Public Library located at 10 Grand Army Plaza near Prospect Park.

In the Season 2 episode of Jane the Virgin titled “Chapter Thirty-Six,” which aired in 2016, Rafael Solano (Justin Baldoni) briefly meets with Avery Van Allen (Shvona Lavette Chung) at Hotel Constance’s Blue Room Lounge.

In 2017, the Lounge portrayed the InterContinental Miami hotel restaurant where Charlie Murphy, Cedric the Entertainer, George Lopez, D.L. Hughley and Eddie Griffin grabbed breakfast in the Season 1 episode of The Comedy Get Down titled “Black Wives Matter.”