In 1926, the Hotel Cortez rises over Los Angeles like a jeweled dagger—ornate, indulgent, and already infamous. Designed by James Patrick March, every inch of the building reflects his meticulous brilliance: maze-like hallways, art-deco grandeur, rooms that seem to shift when no one is looking. The hotel is alive with excess, attracting the city’s most elite and most desperate. It does exactly what March intended—it consumes.