“Hotel California,” an album by The Eagles, holds a special place in the realm of rock music. Its timeless appeal is not just limited to the melodic allure of tracks like “Life in the Fast Lane,” “New Kid in Town,” and the hauntingly beautiful title song, “Hotel California.” What adds to its enigma is the album’s front cover, depicting a hotel with palm trees, basking in the dusky glow of sunset.
Unveiling the Secrets Behind the “Hotel California” Album Cover
In his 2018 book, “The Yacht Rock Book: The Oral History of the Soft, Smooth Sounds of the 70s and 80s,” former Eagle Don Felder uncovers intriguing details about this iconic cover. Often, people have pondered over the identity of the hotel gracing the album’s front. Felder recalls his initial confusion, “When they first showed me that picture of it, I went, ‘What hotel is that?’ They said, ‘The Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset.’ I went, ‘No it’s not.’ Because from the street, it looks like about a fifteen-foot hedge, like a privacy screen. So unless you drive onto the property, you don’t even see the hotel.”
The unique perspective of the hotel on the cover was achieved through a creatively covert operation. Felder explains, “The only way you would get that, as it was explained to me, later, that they had rented a cherry picker and parked it across the street, and unbeknownst to the Beverly Hills Hotel, they erected this cherry picker and the photographer took a bunch of pictures right at sunset as the lights were coming on at the hotel. I think it was Kosh [aka John Kosh] that was the director of that artwork. It turned out to be, in a nutshell, the perfect image to capture the concept of ‘Hotel California’.”
But the allure of the album doesn’t stop at the external facade captured on the front cover. Inside the gatefold sleeve, another image awaited, one that felt worlds apart from the polished exterior of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Felder delves into the backstory of this stark contrast, “The inside cover [of the gatefold], we wanted it to be much more sleazy looking than the Beverly Hills Hotel, which is really more typical of old Spanish architecture. And yet, we wanted to staff the lobby, in this old, kind of seedy hotel, I think it was the Lido Hotel, in a pretty shady area, with people that were either guests coming in or at a party or bellmen, and make it look like a live staff shot in the middle of this hotel, that we were standing there, checking in to. Or checking out, however you wanted to read it.”
The Mystery Behind the Inside Cover Photo Shoot
The selection process for the now-renowned inside cover involved various photo sessions. Felder reminisces about this creative period, “I remember doing that photo session. We took a lot of different shots and angles on that, but that one somehow wound up with what people seem to claim is some lady in one of the windows above us all, on the second story, in like an alcove or something. I don’t remember anything about the woman being up there. But if you look carefully, you can see some female figure up there, supposedly.”
Interestingly, the people populating the photograph alongside the band were not actors or models hired for the day. They were individuals from The Eagles’ own circle. Felder notes, “They were all people that we knew: it was business managers, lawyers, our makeup people, and our PR people. All the people that were part of the Eagles company and business we invited to be a part of that shoot. Now that I look back, I still recognize all the people that were involved in that shoot.”
With over 31.8 million copies sold worldwide, “Hotel California” stands as the third best-selling album of all time, only surpassed by Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and another album by The Eagles, “Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975).”