Few celebrities have captured (and divided) the public like Marilyn Monroe. Had she lived, the actress would have turned 100 this June 1, yet nearly six decades after her death, she still looms large over Hollywood mythology.
And nowhere does her signature old glamour feel more tangible than in the hotels she once checked into. From Beverly Hills hideaways and grand Manhattan institutions to sun-drenched desert resorts, these are the places where Monroe lived, loved, worked, and disappeared from the spotlight when she needed to.
You can still stay in many of them today, with some remaining remarkably unchanged, allowing guests to step straight into a little slice of old Hollywood history.
The luxury hotels where Marilyn Monroe once stayed
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Hollywood Roosevelt
Long before she became Hollywood’s most photographed star, Monroe was living at the Hollywood Roosevelt. She called one of its suites home for two years in the early days of her career, and her first-ever magazine shoot took place beside the hotel’s Tropicana Pool. Today, the renamed Marilyn Monroe Suite overlooks that same pool, now marked by David Hockney’s instantly recognizable painted design. Naturally, this being old Hollywood, the hotel also has its ghost stories: staff and guests alike have long claimed to spot Monroe lingering in mirrors and wandering the halls of her former suite.
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Hotel Bel-Air, Dorchester Collection
Photographer Bert Stern captured Monroe in a series of Dom Pérignon-infused photoshoots at the Hotel Bel-Air in 1962. Tragically these pictures would turn out to be the actress’s last. The 2,500 photographs – in which she looked at turns playful, mysterious, coquettish, and sad – were commissioned by Vogue and published posthumously in The Last Sitting. Yet Monroe’s connection to the hotel stretched back years earlier. During her marriage to Joe DiMaggio, she reportedly lived so discreetly at the Bel-Air that she would avoid the front desk entirely, slipping in and out of the hotel beneath a dark veil to escape attention.
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The Arizona Biltmore
Set in the foothills of the Phoenix Mountains Preserve, you’ll find the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. Built in 1929 by a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, there are eight pools across the hotel’s 39 landscaped acres, but it is the palm tree flanked Catalina Pool that was supposedly Marilyn Monroe’s favourite when she stayed here. It’s not the biggest on the hotel’s plot nor was it the newest, and yet Monroe was not alone in her sunbathing post of choice. Irving Berlin, somewhat ironically, supposedly first dreamed of a White Christmas round lounging around the poolside.
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The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel
For some, privacy is the ultimate luxury. Legend has it that after singing “Happy Birthday, Mr President” to John F Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in 1962, Marilyn Monroe slipped quietly into The Carlyle through its secret entrance, avoiding the paparazzi as she made her way to the President’s duplex apartment upstairs. That visit to The Carlyle has long been the stuff of Manhattan folklore, and while it's never been confirmed what happened afterwards, what is certain is the New York hotel’s deep Kennedy connection: JFK kept an apartment here for the final decade of his life, and after his assassination, Jackie moved in with her children for 10 months.
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The Beverly Hill Hotel, Dorchester Collection
Monroe was a regular at The Beverly Hills Hotel. Tucked away inside the hotel’s famously discreet pink bungalows, the actress spent much of 1960 here while filming Let’s Make Love with Yves Montand, a production remembered as much for the pair’s off-screen affair as the film itself. Monroe reportedly adored the privacy of the property, slipping between bungalows 20 and 21 before ending evenings at the Polo Lounge, where she favoured table six and occasionally ordered an ice cream sundae. Today, the hotel nods to its most famous guest with the Marilyn Monroe-inspired Bungalow 1, filled with playful Old Hollywood touches, from Chanel No 5 bottles to glamorous gold-leaf ceilings.
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Fairmont Banff Springs
In the summer of 1953, the actress checked into Fairmont Banff Springs while filming the Western adventure River of No Return. She spent her downtime exploring the mountain town, posing beside the Bow River, and playing rounds at the Banff Springs Golf Course. With its turreted architecture and cinematic Rocky Mountain backdrop, the grand railway hotel already felt made for Hollywood. More than 70 years later, guests staying today can learn more stories about the hotel’s illustrious past guests on a guided hotel history tour during their stay.
