Opened in 1974, the Hollywood Spa stood at 1650 Ivar Avenue, just off Hollywood Boulevard, and became one of Los Angeles’ best-known gay bathhouses. It remained in business for four decades, closing in 2014.
At its height, the Spa offered around 100 private rooms along with a steam room, sauna, jacuzzi, gym, video lounge, café, and even a DJ. It reportedly welcomed more than 100,000 visitors a year—a fairly impressive amount of traffic for a place where discretion was supposedly part of the appeal.
Before dating apps and widespread LGBTQ+ visibility, bathhouses gave gay men something increasingly difficult to understand from the present: a reliable place to meet one another. They offered sex, certainly, but also anonymity, companionship, and temporary freedom from a city that was not always as accepting as its glamorous reputation suggested.
The Hollywood Spa survived the AIDS crisis, changing public-health regulations, and major shifts in gay social life. By the time it closed, greater openness and online cruising had transformed how men connected, while rising rent and declining attendance made the sprawling Hollywood institution increasingly difficult to sustain.
