Coming in for a Luxury Landing at the Custom Hotel
Mid-Century Modern meets Silicon Beach
You’re a young, ambitious tech entrepreneur known for your poetic coding and virtuosic mastery of Javascript. When you visit L.A. for tech brunches you keep things nice and simple by staying close to the airport—but not at one of those chain hotels. You prefer the Custom Hotel, the only independent boutique hotel between LAX and Venice Beach, whose mid-mod design, excellent WiFi (you’ll need it for late night blockchain sessions) and guest access to Xbox and Wii gaming systems always make you feel right at home.
You wake up, pleased to know your mental checklist has been fully taken care of. Airport Shuttle to LAX? Check. Sleek pool deck, restaurant, and bar for unwinding? Check. Free wifi so you can stream HBO’s Silicon Valley to your heart’s content? Check. And of course, the location ain’t bad - the iconic beach towns of Venice Beach, Marina del Rey, Manhattan Beach and Santa Monica are a short Uber fare (or Segway ride) away.
Your room is modern, whimsical, and bright, matching the building itself, designed in 1968 by renowned mid-century architect Welton Becket, the man behind the iconic Capitol Records Building in Hollywood. Acquired by the Kor group in 2017 and operated by Proper Hospitality (Avalon Beverly Hills, Avalon Palm Springs, and Hollywood Proper Residences), the Custom was given a 2018 refresh, perfect for ahead-of-the-curve travelers like you.
For breakfast, you head to Deck 33 Restaurant & Bar which overlooks the pool, getting your daily fix of Vitamin D on the sundeck. A few laps in the pool and then you’re ready to dive into the day. Google Assistant informs you that after your tech brunch, you’re attending a Bitcoin Mini Bootcamp followed by back-to-back meetings around Playa Beach—aka Silicon Beach, the third-largest tech hub in the world, home to Tesla, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, IMAX, Apple, and Sony. Cool.
You wow every tech leader in town with your vision for a new app for the broken hearted (it automatically checks dating sites for your exes using facial recognition software), and by the time sunset rolls around you feel like you’ve earned a drink. You stop into Whiskey Red’s in Marina del Rey on your way back to the hotel, and watch the sky explode with color, while sipping on a seasonally-infused whiskey cocktail.
Shortly afterward you’re back at the Custom where they’re serving complimentary hors d’oeuvres in the lobby. You notice some cool looking kids wandering through a private, unmarked door on the first floor, and follow them into the Custom’s private bar, the Lincoln Speakeasy, where a local performance artist is entertaining the crowd. You order some light California bites, prepared by a celebrity chef, and sip on craft cocktails, making conversation with a fellow guest who happens to be an executive looking for a CMO. Would you happen to be interested? You text her your LinkedIn profile, and thank her for her interest.
The following morning, as you’re about to board the free shuttle to LAX, you get a message from last night’s exec, inviting you to meet with the founder of her company today. You take your bags off the shuttle and step back into the Custom, where they’re happy to book you for another night. “If this is work, why does it feel like a vacation?” you ask the bartender up at the pool, as he serves you more coffee. "Welcome to L.A.," he smiles.
Custom Hotel
8639 Lincoln Blvd., Los Angeles 90045
310.645.0400
