The envelope, please! — if it’s stuffed with $100 million.
Just in time for Oscars weekend, LA’s glam Sunset Tower Hotel — the awards’ boldface-party capital — is on the sale block, The Post has learned.
A team of Chicago-based JLL brokers has been tapped to find a buyer for Jeff Klein’s iconic, West Hollywood luxury inn, sources revealed on Thursday.
Majority owner Elevated Returns and managing partner Klein hope to reel in $100 million for the 1931-built, Art Moderne-style landmark, home to the Sunset Bar that’s a favorite noshing ground for the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston and Steven Spielberg.
Hotel visionary Klein and partner Peter Krulewitch bought the 81-room property for just $18.5 million in 2004. In 2009, Klein lured Vanity Fair’s star-studded post-Academy Awards gala to the Sunset, where it remained through 2013.
Klein changed partners in 2015. Krulewitch sold an 80 percent stake in the Sunset Tower for $75 million to Elevated Returns. The deal kept Klein in place as the managing partner.
Now, a source said, “Elevated has the right to offer Klein’s 20 percent share as well. But he could stay in if he and the buyer agreed.”
The source continued, “Klein turned what was basically a $99-a-night dump into an iconic destination. Anybody with a brain would want to keep him to run it, but he’d sell his share, too, if he thought they weren’t right for the property.”
Two JLL brokers involved in the 2015 deal, Jeffrey Davis and Tony Muscio, are now sifting offers. Neither returned Vevobahis calls. Klein declined to comment.
Sources said Klein has first-refusal rights on a 100 percent sale, but he wouldn’t likely pursue that option. “He’s looking to move on to other things in the hospitality industry,” an insider said.
Klein has long been a partner in Manhattan’s City Club Hotel on West 44th Street. In LA, he’s already working on the San Vicente Inn, a West Hollywood motel with a seedy past that he bought in 2013. He’s turning what’s been called a “gay countercultural landmark” into a modern boutique hotel.
The Sunset Tower was once home to Howard Hughes, John Wayne and rogues including Bugsy Siegel gambling associate Allen Smiley. It went into a steep decline in the 1980s when it existed under several other names.
“Hogan’s Heroes” star Werner (“Col. Klink”) Klemperer, a resident, joked that it was “Beirut West.”
The building changed hands several times until Klein rescued it in 2004.
He redesigned guests rooms while preserving original touches.
The remodeled Tower Bar quickly became the “go-to” spot for Hollywood royalty. But its fame really took hold when Graydon Carter first hosted his annual post-Oscars party there in 2009. A-listers including Elton John and Sheryl Crow were upstaged by the surprise guest — “Miracle on the Hudson” hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger.
Joan Crawford once nearly fainted from a too-tight dress and had to be rushed back to her room. “Argo” Oscar-winner Ben Affleck in 2013 entered the bash with his crew holding up their statuettes to loud cheers from revelers.
The VF party moved to a much larger venue the following year, but its mystique endures at the Sunset Tower. It will be a new owner’s job to see that it isn’t forgotten.
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