The life and death of San Francisco's rock 'n' roll hotel

"Johnny Rotten was "a pain in the ass," Chip Conley says. "Sinéad O'Connor, when I babysat her baby, was very nice," he continues, drumming his fingers on the wooden table. "... MC Hammer was nice." Conley is sitting in the bar of the Phoenix Hotel, which he founded in the '80s, scanning through his mental Rolodex of celebrity guests. He rattles off the names casually, as if a run-in with Sinéad O'Connor was an everyday occurrence. Because at the Phoenix, it was."

"San Francisco has fancier hotels, like the Fairmont and the Palace. But it's the Phoenix, which was retrofitted from a two-story Tenderloin motor lodge, that has reigned as the city's magnet for celebrities, artists and musicians. Conley envisioned the Phoenix as a rock 'n' roll hotel, a spot where touring bands could roost after a show at Slim's or the Great American Music Hall. The bands came, and the hip crowd followed."

"Anthony Kiedis, the front man of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, once said the Phoenix was " the most sexually, intellectually, and culturally stimulating hotel in San Francisco." The California State Legislature even passed a law to make its pool a historic landmark. All that is coming to an end. In June, a couple months after Michel Suas, the founder of the San Francisco Baking Institute, purchased the Phoenix's lot for $9.1 million, the hotel announced that it would not renew its lease."

Chip Conley founded the Phoenix Hotel in the 1980s by retrofitting a two-story Tenderloin motor lodge into a rock 'n' roll hotel that attracted touring bands, celebrities, and a hip crowd. The hotel became a cultural magnet with lore including a Kurt Cobain wallet note on Phoenix stationery and Keanu Reeves' 1993 pool cannonball. Anthony Kiedis praised the hotel as sexually, intellectually, and culturally stimulating, and the California legislature designated its pool historically significant. Michel Suas purchased the lot for $9.1 million in June, and the hotel announced it will not renew its lease and will close in January.

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