Ground-level hotel pools are scarce in downtown Los Angeles, where most towers put their water on a parking podium or a rooftop deck with a skyline view and a wind problem. Hotel Figueroa's courtyard pool sits at street level inside a restored 1926 building, and the hotel sells access to people who aren't staying the night, in blocks of four hours at a time.
Ask Karpo before you book and we'll walk through which day of the week gets you poolside without a reservation, and what a four-hour pass actually buys once parking and check-in are factored in.
A women's hotel before it was a pool hotel
Hotel Figueroa opened in 1926 under the YWCA, built as a hostelry for women traveling alone in an era when that was still an unusual thing to do openly. Its first general manager, Maude Bouldin, is remembered as the first woman to run a hotel in the United States, and the building's early identity had nothing to do with swimming — it was a safe address in a city that didn't offer many.
The property drifted from that mission over the decades, including a stretch as a Moroccan-themed retreat under designer Uno Thimansson. A 2014 purchase and a restoration completed by 2018 pulled the building back toward its Spanish Colonial Revival original, which is the version — courtyard, tile, stucco arches — that now frames the pool.
The coffin-shaped pool and where the shade falls
The pool itself has a distinctive footprint, narrow and elongated, often described as coffin-shaped rather than the rectangle or kidney shape more common in hotel courtyards. It sits inside a landscaped enclosure with cacti and bougainvillea rather than an open deck, next to a structure on the property called La Casita.
That enclosed layout matters for anyone planning to spend four straight hours there. A courtyard ringed by a historic building and planting throws shadow differently than an open rooftop does, and the angle changes across the afternoon — a chair that starts in full sun near midday can end up shaded by mid-afternoon depending on where along the pool it sits. The day pass includes a reserved lounge chair, so it's worth thinking about position, not just booking, before arrival.
Booking the pass without becoming a hotel guest
Non-hotel guests reserve the pool day through ResortPass, and the property's own access rules split the week in two. Monday through Thursday, hotel guests use the pool without needing to book a reservation at all, which is also the window when the day pass is sold to outside visitors. Friday through Sunday run on different rates and reservation terms.
- Day passes book through ResortPass, generally Monday through Thursday
- Access runs four hours and includes one reserved poolside lounge chair
- Hotel guests use the pool without reservations on the same Monday–Thursday days
- Friday through Sunday follow different pricing and reservation rules
- Day-pass visitors can get parking validated for five dollars with valet or self-park
What four hours actually covers
Four hours is a specific unit, closer to a long lunch than a full day out. It's enough time to swim, dry off, order from the on-site dining, and still leave before the courtyard's afternoon turnover, but it isn't a beach-day amount of time, and treating it as one usually means rushing the last hour.
Because the pass is tied to a reserved chair rather than a general-admission wristband, the clock likely starts at check-in rather than whenever a guest happens to reach the water. Building in a few minutes for that check-in, plus the walk from wherever a car gets parked, is a more realistic way to use the full block than assuming four hours means four hours in the pool.
Parking, transit, and the walk from L.A. LIVE
The hotel sits on South Figueroa Street at Olympic Boulevard, in the same corridor as L.A. LIVE, Crypto.com Arena, and the Los Angeles Convention Center, which makes it a plausible add-on to any of those rather than a destination that needs its own trip. Parking for guests using the restaurant, lounge, or pool without an overnight stay runs eighteen dollars for the first three hours and ten dollars per additional half hour, separate from the day-pass validation rate.
The nearest transit stop is 7th Street/Metro Center, about a ten-minute walk, and there's a bus stop at Olympic and Figueroa closer still. Anyone coming from an arena event next door can reasonably walk it rather than drive.
Why this courtyard stands alone in the skyline
Downtown Los Angeles has plenty of hotel pools, but they're overwhelmingly rooftop pools, built above a podium or a parking structure, because ground-level space downtown is expensive and mostly claimed by lobbies and retail. Hotel Figueroa's pool is the exception — a full courtyard at street level, a layout that has more to do with the building's age than with any current design trend.
That also makes it a rare downtown swim that doesn't come with a wind-and-view trade-off. A pool afternoon here pairs easily with a Downtown day that also touches Olvera Street, Little Tokyo, or the Music Center, rather than serving as the only reason to come.
Practical notes
Hotel Figueroa is at 939 S. Figueroa Street, at the corner of Olympic Boulevard, in Downtown Los Angeles. Day passes for the pool are booked through ResortPass and generally cover Monday through Thursday, with four hours of access and a reserved poolside lounge chair included; hotel guests use the pool without a reservation on those same days, while Friday through Sunday run on separate terms. Parking for pool, dining, or lounge visitors who aren't staying overnight costs eighteen dollars for the first three hours and ten dollars per half hour after that, though the day pass itself offers validated parking at five dollars with valet or self-park. The closest Metro stop is 7th Street/Metro Center, roughly a ten-minute walk, with a bus stop at Olympic and Figueroa closer to the door. The hotel is an active, operating property.
Tags: #HotelFigueroa #DowntownLA #DTLA #PoolDayPass #ResortPass #LosAngelesHotels #SpanishColonialRevival #WeekendPlans #LAPools #FigueroaStreet #SoloTravelHistory #CourtyardPool #DaycationLA
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Ask Karpo first
Ask Karpo which weekday currently carries the day pass and whether hotel-guest access might overlap with outside bookings before locking in a chair. It's also worth asking about the parking validation rate at the time of visit, since day-rate and pool-rate parking are structured differently.
