How the Hotel Cecil went from a luxury stay to one of LA’s most haunted buildings

Welcome back to Spooky L.A., a series where we shine a flashlight on some hair raising history and haunts across Los Angeles. Today, Esotouric L.A.’s Kim Cooper walks us through the Hotel Cecil in downtown L.A.

Once intended as a luxury stay for business travelers, the hotel has a dark and troubling history that includes serial killers and suspicious deaths spanning nearly 100 years.

When Hotel Cecil took a turn for the worse

The Hotel Cecil was built in the 1920s with the intent of providing accommodations for traveling business people. But the hotel succumbed to the Great Depression and by the 1930s, it was a known site for many suicides for people from all walks of life.

By the 1960s, Cooper said Hotel Cecil experienced a decline like many other buildings in downtown. She said the hotel went from being travel friendly to hosting long term residencies.

“In the 1960s, people who were getting displaced from Bunker Hill chose to live in Hotel Cecil because it was a large, well run hotel,” said Cooper.

Later, in the 1980s, that’s when the likes of the “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, who was convicted for 13 murders and committed a series of sexual assaults, started seeking residence at the hotel.

“You didn't really have to flash an ID. It was very cheap. It was close to the bus station. And people wouldn't ask questions if you came home after a night of really awful behavior covered in blood,” Cooper said.

Australian serial killer Jack Unterweger was also seen staying at the hotel in the 1990s. He is blamed for killing three women when he stayed in Los Angeles.

The tragic case of Elisa Lam 

The strange death of Canadian tourist Elisa Lam has inspired documentaries, horror films and more. She was found dead at the age of 21 inside a water tank on the roof of the Hotel Cecil on Feb. 21, 2013.

Lam traveled from Vancouver and was suffering a mental health crisis when she stepped foot inside the hotel.

“She made the other women that she was sharing a room with so uncomfortable, leaving post it notes on their stuff and muttering and saying things they didn't understand,” Cooper said.

Lam was last seen on Jan. 31 before her body was found several weeks later. LAPD released security video at the time from a hotel elevator that shows Lam acting strangely hours before she disappeared. Her death has been ruled an accident.

Hotel Cecil continues to captivate

 “When you stand there, and its shadow is cast across the street on you, and you look up at it, and you can see, it has great bones,” Cooper said.

Cooper added that although the hotel has a tragic history, she wants people to know about some of the positive aspects.

“Alcoholics Anonymous exploded as a phenomenon on the West Coast out of the mezzanine of the Cecil. Because people who had been meeting in private homes asked the house physician, could we meet here?” Cooper said.

As of 2021, the hotel is now used as housing for people experiencing homelessness.

That’s it for today’s history lesson on the Hotel Cecil. Check back in tomorrow as we explore the creepy history of Los Feliz, where a rumored curse is thought to be alive and well.