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The Cypress Inn Belinda Jones writes about how
By Belinda Jones
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Welcome to the most sincerely pet-friendly hotel in the world!
If Carmel-by-the-Sea is a fairy-tale kingdom, then the Cypress Inn is its palace. A striking white Spanish Colonial beauty, circa 1929, adorned with black and gold accents. If you’re lucky, you’ll be at Lincoln and 7th just as a red convertible pulls up with owner Denny LeVett chauffeuring his magnificent Standard Poodles, eager to prance up the colorful Mediterranean tile steps and greet the canine guests.
“Haydn and Strutzy are crazy about visiting the Cypress Inn!” Denny enthuses. “Haydn, the 80-pound black one, loves to ride up front in the car, pretending he’s driving. I always have the radio tuned to the classical station, and if the host introduces some Haydn piano sonata, he’ll plant his ear to the speaker and then look up at me as if to say, “They’re talking about me!”
Meanwhile Strutzy, the white one, “looks and carries himself like a movie star!”
This is apt since Denny’s Cypress Inn business partner for 34 glorious years was the most famously dog-loving movie star of all time—Doris Day.
-Doris Day
“I thought she’d live to be 100,” Denny sighs, reflecting on the legend’s passing last May at age 97. “She really was the greatest. In all our years working together we never had one argument, not one misunderstanding. It was heaven.”
So how exactly did their partnership begin?
Denny rewinds to a dinner he was enjoying with Doris’s record-producer son Terry Melcher, who he praises for his great sense of humor as well as his singer-songwriter talents. Terry was familiar with Denny’s prowess as a real estate investor and was lamenting that he and his mother were not having any luck with the bids on local Carmel hotels. “Terry said, ‘I believe the Cypress Inn is owned by some kind of partnership. Do you know the people involved?’ I said, ‘Yes I do!’ He then said he’d heard that one part of the partnership wanted out. We talked around the topic for an hour until I finally said, ‘Number one, yes it is for sale, and number two, I’m the only one who wants to keep it.’” You can imagine Terry’s jaw dropping! He was extremely protective of his mother, having been the one to break it to her that her third husband (and his adoptive father) Marty Melcher had bankrupted all their business ventures, leaving her deeply in debt. But Terry trusted Denny and begged him to have a lunch meeting with Doris.
“Well I liked her very much and I think she must have liked me because we made an agreement to co-own the Cypress Inn,” Denny twinkles. Doris’s one stipulation was that the 44-room hotel be dog friendly. “She told me, ‘I only like hotels that allow dogs!’ Well that was fine with me. Years before I had taken one of my Poodles up to Northern California after purchasing the Benbow Inn, and it occurred to me that people are much happier traveling with their pets. I thought, why haven’t hotels thought of this before? We should switch things round—leave the children at home and bring the pets!”
Denny met many of Doris’s dogs over the years, and
I ask if he had any favorites.
“Her Poodles!” he laughs. “I love all dogs, truly, but Poodles are just so smart— and those faces. . .”
I recall the promo shot for Doris’s movie April in Paris featuring six Poodles, dyed in pastel hues from cotton candy pink to Tiffany blue. And speaking of classic images, I admire the snap of Doris and Denny immortalized on one of the hotel’s gift cards . . . the blackand-white image captures the partners smiling mid saunter, both sporting dapper blazers, looking very much in tune.
“We have shared so many wonderful occasions together,” Denny reflects. “You know, every New Year’s Day I would give her a call to wish her well. In January last year I called and said, ‘Happy Anniversary, Doris!’ She said, ‘Anniversary?’ I said, ‘Do you know we’ve been business partners for 34 years?’ There was a kind of a muffled sound and then she gasped, ‘Denny, my goodness, 34? I’ve never been with any man that long!’ She was such a witty woman,” Denny laughs delightedly.
As do I.
We may associate Doris Day with her leading men—Rock Hudson, Howard Keel, Jimmy Stewart, to name a few—or perhaps with a couple of diabolical husbands, but for over a third of her life, away from the spotlight, there was Denny LeVett, a man she could trust
and depend upon until the day she passed away. It does my heart good to know that Denny is ensuring her legacy will live on through the Cypress Inn, giving fans and fellow animal lovers a place to visit and honor her memory.
I know I always think fondly of the first time I took my beloved rescue pup Bodie to afternoon tea at Terry’s Lounge. We were sitting on the banquette beneath a vintage poster for Pillow Talk when in walked two stylish seniors accompanied by a pair of Dachshunds decked in pearls. When I complimented them, the ladies confided they had stopped by a thrift store to make the purchase so the dogs would be suitably dressed for the occasion! I wonder out loud how Denny makes his hotels seem simultaneously grand and cozy—is this a quality he recognizes in the property from “ “Doris’ one stipulation was that the 44-room hotel be dog friendly. “She told me,
‘I only like hotels that allow dogs!’ Well that was fine with me. We should switch things round - leave the children at home and bring the pets!”
the start, or something he brings to it?
His answer surprises me, and brings us full circle.
“The secret is the dogs!” he asserts. “Of course I always want to create a happy, homey place, but the beauty of having pets present is that people will see a dog and compliment the owner and before you know it, they have struck up a conversation. This is how friendships begin. We’ve seen it time and again, fellow dog lovers agreeing, ‘Same place, same time next year?’ and it becomes an annual tradition.”
I, for one, can’t wait to return—possibly to be greeted by Poodle Haydn in concierge mode, up on his hind legs with his front paws on the reception desk.
Plus, you never know who you might meet at the nightly Yappy Hour—maybe even someone worthy of a 34-year friendship…Cypress Inn website: CypressInn.com
Doris Day Animal Foundation: dorisdayanimalfoundation.org
Carmel’s annual Poodle Day for 2020 has been postponed but will return October 2, 2021. Find out more at poodleday.com
Belinda Jones is a dog-besotted British magazine journalist and bestselling author of eleven romantic comedy novels and a feeelgood road trip memoir titled Bodie on the Road - Travels With My Rescue Pup in the Dogged Pursuit of Happiness (Skyhorse Publishing). Her Instagram handle is @bodieeontheroad
www.zazzle.com/store/ catherinesullivan watercolor & acrylic artist all my proceeds donated to PeaceOfMindDogRescue.org. catherinesullivanart
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Soon the thunder of their hooves would be no more... A Legend was born.
