- 🎬 Façade · the Oviatt Building, a 1928 Art Deco landmark, filmed for the exterior shots
- 🛋️ Interiors · lobby, hallways and rooms built on a soundstage, modeled on the Cicada dining room
- 🏚️ Cecil Hotel · the model, never filmed, turned into about 600 affordable homes in 2021
- 🛏️ Staying there · not possible, neither building sells rooms in 2026
- 🎃 Halloween · a 1940s party at Cicada, inside the Oviatt, on October 31, tickets $40
The Cortez is back in the news with the thirteenth season of American Horror Story, airing since September 24, 2026, which brings back its fictional builder, James Patrick March. And every year as Halloween approaches, the same question comes up: can you stay at the Hotel Cortez? The answer comes down to three addresses, and only one of them can be visited.
Contents
Where is the Hotel Cortez façade?
The exterior shots of the Cortez were filmed in front of the Oviatt Building, at 617 South Olive Street in downtown Los Angeles, half a block from Pershing Square. The building went up between 1927 and 1928, designed by Walker & Eisen with Feil & Paradise, in a style blending Art Deco and Italian Romanesque.
It is named after James Oviatt, a men’s clothier who had partnered since 1912 with hat salesman Frank Baird Alexander, and whose store occupied the ground floor. Oviatt himself lived in the top-floor penthouse during Prohibition. The building has been on the National Register of Historic Places since August 11, 1983, and is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 195.
Lalique in the elevators
This is the detail the series never shows. René Lalique designed and made the molded glass panels of the elevator doors, the front and side doors, the chandeliers and a large panel clock. The cornice and the twelve-ton illuminated glass ceiling are the work of architect Ferdinand Chanut and glassmaker Gaëtan Jeannin.
So-called Napoleon marble was shipped from France by the ton, as was the three-faced tower clock with chimes, made by Brillié Frères. The former store now houses the Cicada Restaurant and Lounge · the only way to see the interior.
The lobby and rooms: a studio set
Step through the doors and reality stops. The lobby, hallways and rooms of the Cortez were built on a soundstage, over two levels, with a working elevator and staircase. Their decor was modeled on the Cicada’s grand dining room, which explains the family resemblance between the screen and the real building. No address matches what viewers see.
The Cecil Hotel: inspiration, never filmed
The other lasting confusion concerns the Cecil Hotel, at 640 South Main Street. Series creator Ryan Murphy drew on downtown hotels with troubled reputations, and in particular on the death of Elisa Lam, a 21-year-old Canadian tourist found in 2013 in a rooftop water tank at the Cecil · a death ruled an accidental drowning. But nothing was filmed at the Cecil.
Opened on December 20, 1924, behind a façade by Loy Lester Smith, the hotel had 700 rooms. Its reputation grew from a long string of crimes and tragedies, including the stay of a serial killer in the 1980s. It is that reputation, not the building, that the series borrowed.
Can you stay at the Cecil or the Oviatt?
No, at neither. The Cecil is no longer a hotel: renamed Stay on Main in 2011, bought for $30 million in 2014 and closed in 2017 for renovation, it reopened on December 13, 2021 as about 600 affordable homes, with the nonprofit Skid Row Housing Trust. Designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2017, it was put back on the market by its owners in 2024. Listings that still show rates online are outdated: no rooms are sold there, and its residents did not choose to live on a TV set.
The Oviatt Building has never been a hotel and does not house one. You cannot spend the night, but you can dine and dance there: Cicada opens to the public for music nights, with a $40 cover, and hosts private events.
Halloween: real chills, no set
For Halloween, the Oviatt plays its part. On Saturday, October 31, 2026, Cicada hosts a 1940s Halloween party with Johnny Holiday and his orchestra, vintage costume contest included. Admission $40, doors at 7 pm, show at 9 pm, 21 and over, dinner by reservation.
To actually sleep with a ghost, our pick of 10 haunted luxury hotels in Europe runs from room 333 at the Langham in London to the castles of Scotland. Horror film fans will also find The Shining cabin in Big Bear Lake and five more horror movie houses that can genuinely be rented.
The Cortez in season 13
The thirteenth season of American Horror Story, launched on September 24, 2026 on FX, runs to thirteen episodes: three a week for the first two weeks, then two a week, until the finale on October 29. The story is set mostly in New York, in a residential building filled with characters from past seasons, including James Patrick March, the Cortez’s fictional builder, still played by Evan Peters. The Cortez remains, more than ever, a hotel with no address.
Our view
The Hotel Cortez is a textbook case of what fiction does to places. A genuine Art Deco façade lends credibility to an invented interior, and the reputation of a third building, never filmed, supplies the atmosphere. Three addresses for one imaginary hotel.
The only real trip leads to the Oviatt Building, and it beats the series: twelve tons of illuminated glass, Lalique elevators and an Art Deco room where people still dine. Something no studio set can offer.
Photo credits · cover: Oviatt Building, MikeJiroch (CC BY-SA 3.0) · façade: Los Angeles (CC BY-SA 3.0) · glass ceiling: MelissaMStewart (CC BY-SA 4.0) · clock tower: Codera23 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Cicada: MiguelMunoz (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Cecil Hotel: Jim Winstead (CC BY 2.0) and REVILL97 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · via Wikimedia Commons.
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