Mama Shelter LA

Posted in Projects on 20 August, 2015

Guests are now welcome to come home to Mama Shelter LA. The debut property in the USA is now fully open. Hamish Kilburn writes…

The experiment began in 2008, in the City of Light. The Mama brand was born with its first Parisian property. Since then its ‘shared fun’ ethos has created a warm environment that is young, fresh as well as affordable.

Just a few years down the line and Mama Shelter is welcoming its sixth hotel and will be the USA’s debut MAMA. It has been well reported that the hotel company offers something different. The edgy yet clean design and quirky upholstery makes a statement. It’s then hardly surprising that the brand has chosen the City of Angels as its next experiment.

MAMA LA, like the rest of the family in Europe, creates a space that brings people together. LA’s new arrival cradles all those rhinestone cowboys and Sunset Strip rockers, paint-splattered artists and well-cut designers, balling entrepreneurs and dancehall deejays (along with all those that don’t fit under any easy rubric) who come to Los Angeles to figure things out, mediate in the sunlight, and night-range for the sheer fun freedom of the act. All the while looking for space to grow, to change, to manifest destiny. Like its guests, the city is a metropolis that is always growing, shifting, unfettered by context and not afraid to make new history.

Design

With such ambitious intentions, design had to be at the forefront of the hotel. Imagined by Thierry Gaugain, MAMA Shelter LA perches six-stories over the beautiful freaks and sputtering neon of Hollywood Blvd. sheltered in the 1920’s building are 70 rooms, which are havens complete with comfortable king-sized beds. Gaugain is not frightened to try something new. His perception of luxury is inspiring. “Luxury is essential,” he says, “but it is never present in the obvious. Luxury is a state of mind. It’s like light: you can see it on things, but you can never see light itself.”

As part of its aim to bring people closer while allowing guests to grow, innovate and change, the hotel needed to adopt the latest gadgets and communication devices to live up to expectations. Each room comes with its very own 27-inch iMac (featuring television and movies, music, video/photo booth and Internet).

MAMA’s rooftop takes in the sights of all of Los Angeles with a near 360-degree view from the Hollywood sign to Downtown to South Bay to the Westside. With its own outdoor gym and open-air cinema, the space has been utilized to its full potential and offer guests the true LA experience without any shortcuts.

The hotel is located blocks away from the peaked roof and cement celeb handprints at the Chinese Theatre along the Walk of Fame, as well as countless boutiques and bars, tattoo parlors and record shops, burrito stands and vegan restaurants.

Watching the surge of traffic beneath the broad fans of palm trees, the hotel is ideally positioned and has made its mark on The City of Angels. It is new, stylish and quirky and fits perfectly into its surroundings. MAMA has a new home.

www.mamashelter.com/en/los-angeles/