Why White Rabbit Sky Lounge matters.
White Rabbit Sky Lounge is a reimagined rooftop lounge where the Sunset Strip's nightlife culture meets an ivy-covered pool pavilion, panoramic Los Angeles views and the continuation of a hotel bar lineage that began with Skybar three decades earlier.
Set along Sunset Boulevard near Kings Road and just steps from Sunset Tower Hotel, the lounge occupies the rooftop pool deck of The Valorian near the eastern reaches of the Sunset Strip, with the Hollywood Hills rising immediately north, West Hollywood descending south toward Santa Monica Boulevard and the Los Angeles skyline opening east across the basin. An open-air pavilion wrapped in ivy frames the pool and places shaded seating against broad outward views, preserving the spatial arrangement long associated with this rooftop. Daybeds and poolside seating organize daytime use around the water before DJ programming shifts the same deck toward nightlife after sunset. Large-format bottles, cocktails and group drinks reinforce the communal scale of the evening program without separating drinking from the architecture of the pool terrace. The result is a rooftop whose pavilion, water, hillside position and uninterrupted city outlook preserve the physical strengths of its Skybar predecessor under a new name and design.
What defines White Rabbit Sky Lounge.
White Rabbit Sky Lounge is best known for succeeding Skybar in 2026 when the former Mondrian Los Angeles became The Valorian West Hollywood, Curio Collection by Hilton. Pebblebrook Hotel Trust completed the rebranding on April 1, transforming the rooftop venue into White Rabbit and placing Davidson Hospitality Group's Pivot division in management of the hotel. The property itself began as a 1959 apartment building, entered hotel use in 1984 and underwent an extensive Philippe Starck renovation after its 1996 acquisition by Morgans Hotel Group. Skybar opened during that reinvention, and hotelier Rande Gerber's poolside operation became closely associated with the boutique-hotel nightlife model of the period. By the mid-2000s, the open-air bar had a stated capacity of 491 within a 237-room property whose food-and-beverage spaces also included Asia de Cuba and Seabar. A $39 million renovation completed in 2008 under designer Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz subsequently remade guest rooms and public areas without eliminating Skybar from the hotel program. Another redesign followed in 2018 before the 2026 Valorian conversion supplied the property with a new hotel name and transformed Skybar into White Rabbit. The change consequently preserves a rooftop social space created during the 1990s boutique-hotel boom inside a building whose hospitality history has already passed through several substantial architectural and branding turns.
The drinks and food program carries the pool deck from daytime service into late-night DJ sessions, with Friday and Saturday operations extending to 2 a.m. Curious Jorge combines tequila and pineapple in a cocktail named for one of the staff members, placing personal references inside the signature-drink selection. Frosé supplies a frozen counterpoint suited to afternoon pool service, and the broader bar reaches into wines, Champagne, spirits and oversized shared formats. Elote-style corn ribs carry chile, corn and savory richness into the food selection, asada tacos keep the menu close to compact poolside eating and a chicken milanesa torta adds crisp fried chicken against jicama slaw. DJ sets become the principal nighttime component, shifting the pavilion from sunlit pool service toward music and dancing. The drinks, compact food and music program consequently operate around the same architectural asset that has sustained the rooftop since the Skybar era: an outdoor pool terrace suspended above the Sunset Strip with the city spread below.
How White Rabbit Sky Lounge fits.
White Rabbit Sky Lounge works as the anchor for a Sunset Strip outing connecting an early luxury apartment tower, a celebrity supper club converted into a stand-up institution and the rock venue that helped make the boulevard an international music address.
Begin at Sunset Tower Hotel, designed by Leland A. Bryant in 1929 as an Art Deco residential tower whose hillside position and enlarged windows exploited views from the Strip. The building attracted residents including Howard Hughes, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Errol Flynn, Elizabeth Taylor and Frank Sinatra, then entered hotel use under the St. James's Club in 1986 before passing through the Argyle name and returning to Sunset Tower in 2005. Continue to The Comedy Store, occupying the former Ciro's, where Hollywood Reporter publisher Billy Wilkerson opened an exclusive nightclub in January 1940 before Herman Hover broadened its clientele and developed a stage that hosted performers including Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Mae West and Lena Horne. Sammy Shore, Mitzi Shore and Rudy DeLuca opened The Comedy Store there on April 7, 1972, and its rise coincided with Johnny Carson moving The Tonight Show to Los Angeles, drawing comedians west as Mitzi Shore developed a roster that included Richard Pryor, Robin Williams, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Garry Shandling and Andy Kaufman. Conclude at Whisky a Go Go, opened by former Chicago policeman Elmer Valentine on January 11, 1964 inside a former bank building. The club became closely associated with the American discothèque format, suspended a female DJ above the floor in a glass booth and helped popularize go-go dancing through performers in miniskirts and white boots. The Doors moved there after their earlier London Fog engagement and became house band in 1966, placing the group inside a performance lineage that later encompassed Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Byrds and Mötley Crüe. The progression moves from Leland Bryant's Art Deco apartment tower through the conversion of Ciro's celebrity supper-club culture into a major stand-up institution and culminates at Whisky a Go Go, where the Sunset Strip's social life became inseparable from the rock culture that reshaped the boulevard during the 1960s.
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