High at the Hyatt

Many hotels would rather entertain a cyclone in their corridors than be patronized by a freewheeling rock group and its entourage. But Los Angeles' Continental Hyatt House, located on the Sunset Strip within minutes of no fewer than 32 record companies, has decided to take advantage of its location by welcoming--and indulging--pop musicians. The result, according to TIME'S David DeVoss, is that the garish, twelve-story hotel has become a psychedelic pantheon for anybody seeking a Woodstock ambience with a bacchanalian bounce. DeVoss's report:

Members of the Led Zeppelin toss ice cubes out the windows at passing >| police cruisers and dunk mink-clad women in the swimming pool. Alice Cooper's roadies play nude football in the hallway. The J. Geils Band stages mustard and ketchup orgies in its rooms. Instead of tearing their hair, the hotel's youthful staff (average age: 24) smile benignly. The expanded room service is designed to cater to pimpled artists who prefer milkshakes with their chateaubriands. The crazy has become so commonplace that during an Electric Light Orchestra party recently, a zonked-out groupie was propped up in the corner of an elevator and rode up and down for 90 minutes before her presence was reported.

"This place knows what we're involved in," says Joe Schaffner, road manager for the Temptations. Adds Ian Lloyd, lead singer for the Stories: "They make you feel a lot less paranoid than other hotels." The Hyatt's three-man security force is instructed to go easy on questioning or searching guests (and the guests' guests), no matter how strange they look or act. Says Security Chief Richard Wells: "Occasionally we'll find some lovers on the stairs or a naked girl running down the hall. We step in then because our 80-year-old guests might have a heart attack."

Perhaps, but few of the Hyatt's conventional clientele of tourists and Japanese businessmen seem to mind. "A few months ago, when Humble Pie was here, two gray-haired ladies from Omaha were staying in the hotel," recalls Night Desk Clerk Jim Ralston. "They took naps in the afternoon so they could sit up at night and watch the circus. They just sat, chattered and poked each other in the ribs in amazement." Between the circus and the onlookers, the Hyatt is enjoying an 82% occupancy rate, 17% higher than the national hotel average. (Rates: from $21.50 per room to $1,100 for the entire floor that some groups require.) There are problems along with the prosperity, however. The restaurant's coffee cream has been laced with LSD from time to time; coke at the Hyatt comes in powder form as often as liquid; people occasionally collapse in the hotel's public bathrooms from one kind of overdose or another. Last year alone, 40 police busts and 65 citizen's arrests were made on the premises.

Then there are damages. Some of the Hyatt's rooms have been repainted more times than the Queen Mary. During a recent stay, Led Zeppelin surpassed its 1972 record of $1,700 by racking up $2,500 in damages--destroying paintings, soiling walls, submerging four stereos in bathtubs, and reportedly holding motorcycle races in a corridor. But, like Joe Cocker, who ruined a carpet last spring by stomping his birthday cake into the fabric, the musicians smoothed things over by paying the tab immediately. "Most of these groups just don't worry about damages," sighs Hyatt Manager Lou Wilson. "If I could draw 18,000 people at $7 a ticket, maybe I wouldn't either."

Not all the Hyatt's excitement is inside the building. Whenever rock groups are in residence, flocks of pubescent groupies fling themselves against the smudged glass doors, seeking a way to infiltrate the building. Says Security Chief Wells: "We have to be on constant alert for them, moving all the time, sometimes tracking them by smell, since they all have the odor of burning rope."

Many of the girls are well-known Sunset Strip characters with names like Sable Starr or Lori Lightning, and their accoutrements are kookier than their names: glitter makeup, an electric Afro pierced by a long-stemmed rose, extremely low-cut dungarees with two suspenders to cover the nipples. The gay and transvestite crowds attracted by performers like Alice Cooper and David Bowie have included one fan dressed as a ladybug and another as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. Indeed, so bizarre is the show on the sidewalk that it produces another kind of damage problem: distracted motorists driving past the hotel have an average of six collisions a month.

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