LOS ANGELES _ As an overcast day ended in the heart of "the resistance," President Trump's motorcade tucked into the 7th Street entrance of the Wilshire Grand skyscraper.
There was no grand entry, or at least I missed it, standing behind Secret Service agents awaiting his arrival. Still, the hotel inside _ the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown _ had all the charming excesses that our 45th president might desire.
The building's interior decorator told this to my colleague Thomas Curwen about his inspiration for the steakhouse: "We wanted French opulence and good taste to meet with a gritty California scene." That same spot _ La Boucherie _ has a bar in the shape of Marie Antoinette's slipper.
But as I set out to spend a night with Donald, I wanted to dig deeper. Trump isn't just the leader of the free world. He's a hotelier connoisseur _ infamous for dwelling over the smallest details at his properties.
So why, I wondered, of all the hotels in our fair city did he decide on this one? It was neither convenient nor a place he had stayed before. The president once wined and dined porn actress Stormy Daniels in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, according to Daniels. And, in choosing this fine establishment, he also exposed himself to a rush hour commute from Beverly Hills _ where he had been raising big bucks Tuesday evening. (Yes, this journey is made easier when streets can be closed on his account.)
In the 70th-floor lobby, I stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows alongside Paul Saxton _ a retired New Yorker who was tagging along on his wife's business trip. A dense fog gave way to an angelic sunset and a picturesque view of the Hollywood Sign.
"It's the highest hotel on the West Coast," Saxton told me. "He must like that."
Later in the evening, as business executives mingled at the Lobby Lounge, where a burger costs $29, Giuseppe Van Oordt expressed a similar sentiment. The 32-year-old had only recently moved to downtown Los Angeles, and his friend had snuck him in that evening. He marveled at the vibrancy of the area and said Trump must have felt that energy as well.
"It's the tallest building," Van Oordt said as he sipped a $17 old-fashioned. "He's not going to stay at some second tallest building."
The 2,500-square-foot presidential suite sits on the 66th floor, and the "sweeping views of the Los Angeles skyline serve as the backdrop to a relaxing lounge complete with a piano," according to the hotel's website.
I'm not sure if Trump stayed in that suite _ or if he can tickle the ivories. But with its LED light shows and a curving sail affixed to the top, the building is as Trumpian as you can get in this city _ albeit with less gold and more glass.
Tammy Jow _ of AC Martin architects _ was one of the lead designers of the building. She worked for years with its owner, Yang Ho Cho, the chairman of Hanjin International Corp. and Korean Air, and his daughter Heather to create something special.
"I think it's an honor," Jow told me upon hearing Trump would be staying here.
"I think it fulfills a vision that the chairman had from the beginning _ that we would provide a hotel of a caliber that would be able to host dignitaries, even presidents."
She demurred when I was asked whether it was ironic that Trump was staying at this beacon of Korean wealth in one the country's most diverse cities even as he spent Tuesday marveling at prototypes for his "big beautiful wall" and spent last week promoting trade tariffs.
But Jow's mention of Cho led me to an equally intriguing theory for why Trump chose this hotel _ one that several guests posited to me as well.
"It's the newest five-star hotel or maybe it's because of the business interests. That Korean money," said a woman I met who was wearing a black hat with the Jaguar car logo on it and carrying a small terrier.
Trump staying here would certainly be a feather in Cho's cap, said Richard Gowan, a foreign policy expert who has been closely following the crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Maybe it will help Trump endear himself to a country whose help he'll need in any number of upcoming geopolitical crises.
"So Trump's team have to be aware that he can't lay his head on a pillow anywhere without sending a political message," Gowan said in an email.
"It is rather like the King in some medieval realm announcing that he is coming to stay in some remote baron's castle. It is a signal of friendship to the host. But the host had better get the details right."
