Tom Cruise Slept Here...Well, Maybe

T.C. Mapother V

I wonder if John Travolta, Leah Remini or Giovanni Ribisi ever set foot in this building?

Located at the corner of Washington Street and Massachusetts Avenue in Boston's South End neighborhood, the former Hotel Alexandra was most recently owned by the Boston outpost of the Church of Scientology. When the religious group that's definitely not a cult purchased the building in 2008, it was with the intention of turning the circa-1875 Gothic structure into its New England headquarters. The House That L. Ron Hubbard Financed With His Crazy Crazy Books and Tape Recordings would have included a cafe, chapel and bookstore open to the public, according to this article.

The Folks Who Love Tom Cruise More Than They Love Themselves decided to sell the building, however, after failing to raise the millions needed to renovate the building, which has suffered multiple fires over the years. The Sons and Daughters of Xenu reached an agreement last summer to sell the building to Eric Hoagland, the son of CVS Pharmacy founder Ralph Hoagland.

Hoagland's Common Management Group plans to restore the property, but stated in the Boston Globe that the deal could take a year to close.

When The Worshipers and Captors of John Travolta acquired the former hotel in 2008, they also purchased an attached brownstone known as the Ivory Bean. Why was it called the Ivory Bean? Your guess is as good as mine, but let's agree that as far as building nicknames go, Ivory Bean is nowhere near as cool as the Darth Vader Building.

(You can see the outline of the demolished Ivory Bean building on the side of the former Hotel Alexandra.)

While the upper floors of the Building That David Miscavige Hoped to Use As Yet Another Place to Belittle and Assault His Underlings have been vacant for decades, the ground floor is home to a wig and beauty shop.

(The once-grand entrance of the five-story Hotel Alexandra -- which was an early Boston example of an apartment-hotel catering to the well-heeled -- just looks stupid now.)

(Close up, you can see, despite the rust and grime, the details that make this building stand out.)

Will the Son of CVS be the savior of Hotel Alexandra that the Father of Diabetics couldn't be? Let's hope so. As you can see in the photo below, the building obviously used to be quite stunning. And the buildings around it deserve to see the former hotel shine again. Stay tuned....