Inside the Beverly Hills Hotel

(CBS News) Hollywood stars who want to get away from it all know the lap of luxury is never far away. It's to be found at the legendary hotel that first opened its doors a century ago. Contributor Conor Knighton checks us in:

Fresh squeezed OJ in the morning, an endless supply of fresh linens and little soaps, a poolside chaise lounge . . . when guests go looking for the royal treatment, they check into the "Pink Palace."

At the Beverly Hills Hotel, anything can be yours, for a price: $1,200 will buy you one night in a suite that's a favorite of TV host Jimmy Fallon.

Or, for a few grand/hundred [?] more, you can while away the day in Marilyn Monroe's favorite bungalow.

Not much comes cheap in the world's most famous zip-code. But when the hotel opened its doors one hundred years ago this month, Beverly Hills wasn't much more than a hill of beans . . . lima beans.

Margaret Anderson, a hard-working single mother who'd already found success as a Hollywood hotel owner, took on the challenge of turning these dusty hills into an Eden.

"My great-grandmother could not stand behind the counter of either hotel that she owned because it was inappropriate for a woman to do that - I mean, they couldn't vote yet," said Robert Anderson, who has spent the last decade chronicling the rise of his great-grandmother's hotel, and the city of Beverly Hills that grew up around it.

Real estate developers had the notion that if you built a fancy enough hotel, replete with bridle paths, black-tie dinners, and lush gardens, the rich would come.

And they did, in droves, buying up property nearby. Although some of the first celebrity residents didn't get the warmest welcome . . .

"Douglas Fairbanks came to my grandfather once the hotel opened here, and asked him if he could find him a house here in Beverly Hills," said Anderson. "And he called my grandfather the next day, after moving in, saying, 'People are calling me and telling me I have to move!"

"And he was really upset. And my grandfather called up these idiots [complaining about movie star "riffraff"] and told them, 'Knock it off!'"

That Hollywood "riffraf" was soon considered royalty - and movie star mansions sprang up all around the hotel.

In the words of Honorary Mayor Will Rogers, "We have more swimming pools and less Bibles in Beverly Hills than any town in the world."

Through it all, the Beverly Hills Hotel remained the place to see and be seen.

Unless, of course, you didn't WANT to be seen.

The hotel's bungalows were renowned for their privacy, allowing guests like Clark Gable and Carole Lombard to carry on a clandestine affair.

"Well, I can't comment on that," said Anderson. "But I would imagine some people were getting together that weren't supposed to be."

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor honeymooned there in 1964. In fact, Taylor spent SIX of her eight honeymoons at the hotel.

But for sheer staying power, no one could rival Howard Hughes. For three decades, Hughes resided in Bungalow Four. The hotel even had a staff member tasked with stashing roast beef sandwiches among the trees so the eccentric millionaire could sneak out for a midnight snack in privacy.

In the late 1940s, the hotel got a facelift under the supervision of Paul Revere Williams, one of America's first prominent African-American architects.

Williams' scheme of bold stripes, tropical wallpaper and sinuous curves infused the hotel with new life.

He also created its distinctive logo, and built the famous Polo Lounge, a clubby restaurant which remains a hub of Hollywood dealmaking.

"It was a place where people would gather after polo matches," said Anderson. "After the matches, they would come here and have cocktails and put their trophies behind the bar."

Maggie Smith and Michael Caine bellied up to the Polo's bar for their first taste of guacamole ("green slime") in Neil Simon's "California Suite."

The hotel's pool even took a star-turn in 1957's "Designing Woman."

And for decades, aspiring starlets strutted their stuff under the watchful eye of Svend Petersen, a Danish-born competitive swimmer who spent 43 years manning the pool deck.

"Yeah. Raquel Welch was one of them," Petersen said. "And she paraded around in a bikini. I always say when people ask me who's the greatest body you ever seen? Raquel Welch was the greatest one."

Welch's appearance at the Beverly Hills Hotel lead to her appearance in "One Million Years, B.C." It's hard to disagree with Svend's opinion.

The Anderson family sold the hotel in 1928, just before the Great Depression, and it's gone through several owners since.

Today, the Pink Palace really is fit for royalty: it's owned by the Sultan of Brunei.

And just to make things even MORE exclusive, during a 1990s renovation, the Sultan reduced the number of suites and rooms from 250 to fewer than 200.

Naturally, most of the extra square footage went to bathrooms and closets that rival Manhattan apartments in size.

And so, while you won't see Marilyn or Douglas or Howard lingering over a cocktail in the Polo Lounge, take heart: those one hundred years of history are still tucked away behind the palms, ready to be rediscovered by anyone prepared to pick up the tab.

For more info:

• Beverly Hills Hotel
• "The Beverly Hills Hotel and Bungalows: The First 100 Years" by Robert S. Anderson (Available through the hotel's gift shop)