The infamous San Vicente Inn here, long operated as a clothing-optional, men-only motel with a just-smoke-it drug policy, in many ways epitomizes this city’s past as a live-and-let-live gay ghetto.
It also sums up West Hollywood’s rapidly gentrifying, more inclusive future. A new owner, the boutique hotelier Jeff Klein, plans to spend $30 million to transform the 29-room motel into a high-end auberge. Straight people welcome.