The Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles

While The Eagles repeatedly state that Hotel California is not about any specific hotel, the building featured on the 1976 album sleeve most definitely is. It’s the elegant Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard, which first opened its doors in 1912. For the album cover, photographer David Alexander and designer John Kosh shot the setting sun behind the hotel. To get above the surrounding trees, they jumped into an 18-metre-tall cherry picker, swaying precariously over rush-hour traffic. Don Henley has said Hotel California reveals a sinister side of sunny LA: ‘It’s basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess, which is something we knew a lot about.’

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