{"id":2571,"date":"2021-10-23T10:16:29","date_gmt":"2021-10-23T17:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/?p=2571"},"modified":"2021-10-23T10:16:29","modified_gmt":"2021-10-23T17:16:29","slug":"high-hopes-for-matthew-stafford-and-a-super-bowl-in-sight-for-the-intercontinental","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/golf\/lifestyle\/2571\/high-hopes-for-matthew-stafford-and-a-super-bowl-in-sight-for-the-intercontinental","title":{"rendered":"High hopes for Matthew Stafford and a Super Bowl in sight for the InterContinental"},"content":{"rendered":"

Longtime Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, traded to the Los Angeles Rams, has his sights set on a competing in a Super Bowl in his home stadium \u2013 a venue visible from Spire 73, a sky bar reachable in 43 seconds aboard a high-speed elevator and secondary scenic glass elevator in the high-rise InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown hotel. Sofi Stadium, which opened in 2020, is 10 miles away and 73 stories below.<\/p>\n

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\"Spire<\/a>

L.A.\u2019s vastness is visible from The InterContinental\u2019s rooftop Spire 73 Restaurant. (Photo by Harrison Shiels)<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u00a0\u201cYou can see the beautiful SoFi Stadium looking south from Spire 73, which is the highest open-air restaurant and bar in the Western Hemisphere. It\u2019s like you\u2019re on the top of the world and you can reach out and touch the moon,\u201d said Niles Harris, Area General Manager for the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown. \u201cThe Super Bowl will be played there in February and our hotel will play a major role, as it does in any sporting event, political event or convention. It will be buzzing around here.\u201d<\/div>\n
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The InterContinental already buzzes \u2013 it\u2019s a property popular with celebrities, business leaders and star athletes who nevertheless value discretion. \u201cWe have starlight, private booths our exclusive, A-listers tend to like in our fine-dining restaurant Le Boucherie,\u201d said Harris. He showed me the starlight booths in the Michelin and Wine Spectator-recommended steakhouse, which is infused with a French twist, and how they present the seated stars with a 71-story view of the Hollywood sign on the horizon.<\/div>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019re fortunate to have a star quarterback like Matthew Stafford here leading the Rams. I\u2019ve had a chance to meet him in the past. He is a most gracious and nice man,\u201d said Harris, whose career path has given him experience at leading hotels across America involved with past Super Bowls, the Olympics, NCAA Final Four, and the nearby Rose Bowl which, were it not for the Santa Monica Mountains, would also be visible from Spire 73. (I was able to spot the InterContinental, though, from Downtown Pasadena.)<\/div>\n
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And from the InterContinental\u2019s 70th<\/sup>floor lobby l could make out many other L.A. landmarks including the Staples Center just below, Dodger Stadium, Beverly Hills and the ocean. Looking up from the check-in desk of the two-story lobby I saw artistic strings of colored lights dangling to evoke the trails of tail lights visible on tangled L.A.\u2019s freeways below. A 20-foot mural at the block-long, Wilshire Blvd to Seventh Street, covered, ground-level valet entrance is also an homage to the famed traffic system. \u201cEveryone in Los Angeles drives everywhere,\u201d remarked Dana Debel, an executive with Delta Airlines who, like Stafford, relocated from Michigan to La La Land with her husband Howard and son Elliott.<\/p>\n

Harris doesn\u2019t worry about the traffic since he lives downtown and walks to his office at the InterContinental. \u201cI love living in Los Angeles. The vastness and diversity here is so rich. You have the ability to be in the desert and then three hours later in the mountains or at the beach. It\u2019s an amazing place with creative, different people, too. It\u2019s a rich culinary repository with every cultural advantage and every major sport – though I haven\u2019t been surfing yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stafford, a native Texan who played college ball in Georgia before 12 seasons in Detroit, likely has no surfing experience but he has been accepted for membership at prestigious Brentwood Country Club, where his young family can enjoy the facilities that come with the classic course.<\/p>\n

In the off-season Stafford was photographed playing golf with Larry David, whose HBO show \u201cCurb Your Enthusiasm\u201d films in the club\u2019s residential neighborhood. In a welcoming show of support Brentwood Country Club planned to shuttle a group of members to cheer on Stafford and his Rams when they took on his former team, the Detroit Lions. Brentwood CC\u2019s Assistant General Manager Patrick Casey studied to be a PGA professional at Ferris State University in Big Rapids.<\/p>\n

Back up at the Edward Delena-managed snazzy Spire 73, with its cuisine, craft cocktails, fire pits, water features, music and flat screen tv\u2019s, Harris said sometimes an L.A.P.D. helicopter will fly up, pause, and the police will wave. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of fun and we make certain InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown Hotel guests can get a reservation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Contact Michael Patrick Shiels at\u00a0<\/i>MShiels@aol.com<\/i><\/a>\u00a0His radio program may be found at\u00a0MiBigShow.com<\/a>\u00a0or weekday mornings from 9-noon on WJIM AM 1240<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The InterContinental Hotel in downtown Los Angeles is a property popular with celebrities, business leaders and star athletes who value discretion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":2574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[152766,1023747,1023748],"class_list":["post-2571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-matthew-stafford","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-travel-los-angeles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2021\/10\/unnamed-8.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2575,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions\/2575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}