Some cool celebrity houses images:
FL - Hollywood: Gingerbread House in the Westin Diplomat
Image by wallyg
In 2000, The Country Club at The Diplomat opened to the public with a Joe Lee-designed golf course, Pro Shops, Locker Rooms, 60-luxury guestrooms, 10-clay tennis courts, Grand Ballroom, The Royal Palm Room, The Links Grill and the Tack Room Lounge. That same year The Spa at The Diplomat opened to the public.
The Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa, at 3555 South Ocean Drive in Hollywood, was designed by Nichols Brosch Sandoval & Associates in 2002. The 39-floor, 1,000-room hotel building is the tallest in Broward County, reaching a height of 444-feet. The 0-million development also includes a 135-unit residential condominium, 250,000 sq. ft. convention center and a 60,000 sq. ft. shopping village.
Originally opened as the 750-room Diplomat Hotel in 1958 by Sam Friedland, founder of the Food Fair supermarket chain, the hotel quickly became popular with the celebrity class, hosting the likes of Dean Martin, Bob Hope and Lawrence Welk among others. In 1962, Saudi Arabian Sheik Mohammed Al-Fassi rented two floors at the Diplomat and was arrested after trying to skip out on a .4 million tab. In 1965, Senator Robert Kennedy, his wife Ethel, and his mother Rose Kennedy attended the John F. Kennedy Memorial Ball at the Diplomat. In 1966, Judy Garland played the hotel's Café Crystal, and in 1967 Sammy Davis, Jr. and Liza Minnelli hosted 3,200 people for their first joint concert.
A series of arson fires in 1983 forced the Diplomat to close for a year, undergoing million in renovations. After reopening in 1984, it hosted President Ronald Reagan's address to the International Longshoremen's Association. Bob Hope performed at the hotel’s 1984 New Year’s Eve Gala. In 1987, Friedland's son-in-law Irving Cowan gave up control of the property to a consortium of labor union pension funds who bailed out the financially challenged hotel with a million loan. Hired by the lenders, Harbaugh Hotels began renovating in 1988 and in 1991, it was sold to one of the lenders, Union Labor Life Insurance Co., closing again for renovation but never reopening.
In 1997, the United Association of Journeymen & Apprentices of the Plumbing & Pipe Fitting Industry of the US & Canada (UA) purchased the property and the following year imploded the building, hiring Coral Gables-based architectural firm, Nichols Brosch Sandoval & Associates, to design a new hotel, convention center and retail complex. In 2001, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide was appointed the management company for the property.
Shirley Temple's (Childhood) House
Image by Miss Shari
