Offshore Buyers Snap Up 2 Boutique Hotels in Beverly Hills

A joint venture from the Middle East has purchased two boutique hotels in Beverly Hills for an undisclosed price.

Malta-based Corinthia Group and Kuwait-based Action Real Estate bought the 44-room Maison 140 at 140 South Lasky Drive and the 49-room Mosaic Hotel at 125 South Spalding Drive, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported. The seller, or sellers, were not disclosed.

The hotels sit a block away from each other.

The three-story Maison 140, a luxury French and “Far East-inspired” hotel, was built in 1939 as an apartment home for silent film star Lillian Gish.

The four-story Mosaic, built in 1959, is run by Preferred Hotel & Resorts.

Operation of the hotels will be switched to Downtown Los Angeles-based Palisociety, under the supervision of Corinthia’s development arm, according to the Business Journal.

“With decades of experience in markets around the world, including Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, we are now expanding into the United States, which remains a key market for future growth and innovation,” Sheikh Mubarak Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah, chairman of Action Real Estate, said in a statement.

Corinthia, a unit of International Hotel Investments, owns and manages 25 hotels worldwide. The firm marked its entrance into North America with the opening of The Surrey, a hotel in New York with 100 rooms and 14 private residences on the Upper East Side.

The hotel investor recently poured $162 million to renovate the historic Grand Hotel Astoria in Brussels. This month, it announced plans to run a landmark 102-story hotel and apartment project in Dubai.

— Dana Bartholomew