Intimate images of ‘the real Hotel California’

When, in 1969, the duo opened a sister studio in LA (and another in Sausalito in 1972), they supercharged the original concept, creating a sort of rock hotel, with group Jacuzzis, mirror-ceilinged bedrooms, bedrooms with nicknames including “S&M”, and, in keeping with the era, a variety of illicit drugs intended to keep these paying guests holed up as long as they could. “Mirrors were embedded in the consoles, and the assistants were instructed to make sure there was a clean blade and a straw there every morning,” says Porter.