On Dec. 26, 1927, Hollywood’s elite arrived for the screening of the silent film, “My Best Girl” starring Mary Pickford, at the grand opening of DTLA’s United Artists Theatre on Broadway. Almost a century later, invited guests mingled inside the majestic movie palace to celebrate the relaunch of STILE DTLA, the design-forward lifestyle hotel in the storied United Artists building.
Food and drinks flowed inside the cultural-historic landmark as the hotel team explained the changes made to the property since 2023, when it officially changed its name from the Ace Hotel to STILE DTLA.
LA-based interior design firm Design, Bitches transformed the hotel’s 182 guest rooms, which now include skincare products made in Korea exclusively for STILE, Copper Cow Coffee and Harney & Sons tea. On the first and second floor, SparkHouse will soon offer state-of-the-art studios and collaborative workspaces through private membership. The rooftop bar, Somewhere Special, has been upgraded, and The Goodie Shop in the lobby, which includes a cassette library and Walkman listening program, has been revamped.
AJU CEO Jaisun Ihm poses for a portrait in the historic United Theatre in downtown Los Angels during the opening reception of the STILE DTLA.
(Chris Mortenson/Staff)
“Until February 2023, it was the Ace Hotel,” explained Jaisun Ihm, CEO of the hotel’s owner, AJU Continuum. “We didn’t officially launch until now, when we knew that we had changed the product to what STILE is.”
AJU is a Korean-based company. Ihm oversees all its hotel portfolios within Korea and the United States. STILE DTLA marks AJU’s first U.S. expansion.
Ihm never does anything small; he goes big.
“I worked for Starwood for a long time, most specifically with the W Hotels brand,” he shared. “Shortly after that, I joined Legends Hospitality to open Yankee Stadium in 2009 and then transitioned to the West Coast, where I helped the company expand. I was based at the Angels Stadium. The company is an operator of stadiums. We basically did everything aside from running the team itself.”
One day his childhood friend, Leo Moon, the chief visionary officer for Aju, told him about his vision for a lifestyle hotel that he wanted to launch — a hotel that had never been done before in Korea. He asked Ihm to join his team. Ihm excitedly accepted the challenge in 2018, moved to Korea and helped to successfully launch RYSE Hotel in Seoul.
Aju bought the United Artists building in December 2019 and envisioned STILE DTLA to be the sister brand to RYSE Hotel.
“We fell in love with the property, the historic nature,” relayed Ihm. “You don’t find properties that have a theater attached to the property itself. We’re hotel guys, but at the end of the day, it’s the theater that attracted us to acquire the property — and the lineage and the history behind it. We base a lot of our hotel brands on the creative community: music, fashion, art. What better hotel to operate and own than one that has a historic 1,600-seat theater?”
Throughout the years and name changes, the theater has remained an open venue, available for booking, to, in Ihm’s words, “retain the renegade and independent spirit of the United Artists brand.”
Furniture designer Lex Alvarado poses for a portrait in one of the new rooms at STILE DTLA.
(Chris Mortenson/Staff)
Two months after Aju bought the property, COVID hit. Instead of backing out, Aju doubled down.
“I think all hotel owners were trying to navigate COVID,” he said. “We actually sold two hotels elsewhere to ensure that our other hotels stayed afloat.”
The company, which was based out of New York, closed its office and moved the entire team to LA for the renovation.
“We knew that a property like this required everything we had if we were to be part of every inch of the renovation process,” he said. “We’re actually officed out of this building. My CFO lives downtown. My finance team lives downtown.”
“It’s been a bumpy road,” he added, “but we believe in the city. We believe in this historic core. We want to be a small partner, a small catalyst, to hopefully bring back Downtown LA. We’ve come to know all the neighbors, and we think community is going to bring Downtown LA back.”
According to the hotel’s site, through its local partnership program, the STILE experience offers exclusive benefits at handpicked local favorites.
“When you construct something as an idea and on paper and you facilitate that into reality, that’s the most rewarding effect,” Ihm shared. “That kind of joy that you get when you finally get to that endpoint and look back at all the hard times and the troubles we went through. It makes it all worthwhile. It’s been a long time coming, and we felt this was the right time that we put more capital into the property and revived what this property was all about, before COVID, back to 1927.”
STILE DTLA is located at 929 South Broadway, Los Angeles; stayinstile.com.