Burn out - Hollywood Riviera Beach Club

Aerial view of the Hollywood Riviera Beach Club taken on July 27, 1930. (Photo courtesy Historic Torrance: A Pictorial History of Torrance, California.)

Surfers still refer to the section of Torrance beach below where the Hollywood Riviera Beach Club once stood as "Burnout Beach."

The name refers not to the state of mind of its denizens, but to the spectacular fire that consumed the seaside resort on the night of Sept. 25, 1958.

Ground had been broken for the private club decades earlier, on March 4, 1930. Clifford Reid, the developer who envisioned the Hollywood Riviera section of Torrance as a potential playground for the Hollywood elite when he began selling lots there for about $3500 each in 1928, saw the club as a central attraction whose glamorous image would lure homebuyers in to buy lots.

It opened on June 27, 1931. Residents of the Hollywood Riviera development automatically became members of the club, though dues were required to use the pool and to attend special events held there.

Visitors enjoy the Hollywood Riviera Beach Club's ambience in this undated photo from the 1930s. (Photo courtesy Historic Torrance: A Pictorial History of Torrance, California.)

Reid's plan to attract movie stars foundered on two shoals: the advent of the Depression, and the development's anti-Semitic policies, which prohibited Hollywood elites such as Louis B. Mayer and Sam Goldwyn from owning property there.

But the development's spectacular location still attracted visits from the rich and famous, though only the late actress Rosemary DeCamp actually became a long-term resident there.

Reid's nephew, Marshall Stewart, recalls using the club's 75-foot swimming pool while his father, Roy Stewart, was managing it from 1930-1942. Not long after Pearl Harbor, the military installed anti-aircraft guns in the hills by Torrance beach, and by Stewart's account, the pounding of the ensuing target practice structurally damaged the club, which closed in 1942.

It reopened after the war after Reid sold it, and its new owners made it a public club open to all. It had a successful run during the 1950s, though its image became decidedly less elegant and took on more of the atmosphere of a roadhouse than a swanky club.

Since the club straddled the city limit between Torrance and Redondo Beach, the story has been told that imbibers would have to cross from one side of the tavern to the other to stay in compliance with each city's liquor laws.

Neighbors began to complain about "undesirables" congregating there, and tales were told of all-night jam sessions and other such disruptive goings-on. Also, the club suffered some flood damage from storms both in 1955 and 1957.

The owner at the time of the fire, Norton Wisdom, had taken over the club in 1957 and signed a new lease which extended until June 30, 1965.

According to Daily Breeze accounts, the fire broke out in the cocktail lounge at about 3:30 a.m. early on Thursday, Sept. 25, 1958. At least 45 firemen, 21 from Redondo and 24 from Torrance, battled the blaze and brought under control an hour later, though it continued to burn until dawn.

Daily Breeze front page for Thursday, Sept. 25, 1958.

Wisdom is said to have arrived during the height of the blaze, when he ran into the courtyard and asked, "What the hell has happened?" Later, firemen had to restrain him from going back into the burning structure to try and retrieve some of his belongings.

Daily Breeze front page photo from Saturday, Sept. 27, 1958 showing the burned-out club.

The club was a total loss. No one was injured in the blaze, but several employees who lived at the club were left homeless. Estimates of its value ranged from $150,000 to $700,000, but it was never rebuilt. Shortly after the fire, its ruins were bulldozed into the sea.

For years afterward, plans were made to re-develop the site. Even before the fire, Torrance and Redondo were trying to formulate plans to buy the club and convert it into a teen recreation center, but they had been unable to sort out the site's tangled ownership situation.

As early as 1964, the Sovereign Development Co. had proposed a plan to build a 16-story apartment complex on the site. That proposal was defeated in Aug. 1964, but similar attempts and proposals would be made throughout the rest of the 1960s, all of them opposed by Hollywood Riviera residents.

Developers eventually brought the case before the Los Angeles Superior Court in 1972, where Judge Richard Schauer ruled that the property had been "dedicated by implication" to the public, and the property's then-owner, Oscar Berk, could not build upon the property that he had purchased for $600,000.

That ruling eventually led to the development of Miramar Park on the site. The small, beautiful park was dedicated by the City of Torrance on January 11, 1984. Since then, the one-time posh night spot, shown below in a Sept. 2010 photo, has been a public space that all can enjoy.

Sources:

"Life on the Riviera, Hollywood that is - Tackling the starstruck myths, legends and history of South Bay's famous parcel of land," By Tom Barnidge, The Daily Breeze, April 2, 2004, Page B1.

"Stars didn't buy, but GIs did," By Dennis Johnson, The Daily Breeze, May 5, 2002, Pag A4.

City of Redondo Beach Historic Context Statement, by Marguerite Duncan-Abrams and Barbara Milkovich, Ph.D, Redondo Beach Planning Department, 1995.

History of the Early Hollywood Riviera, by Marshall E. Stewart, (self-published, no date).

Historic Torrance: A Pictorial History of Torrance, California, By Dennis F. Shanahan and Charles F. Elliott, Legends Press, 1984.

Daily Breeze files.

One of the two sets of stairs up the hill from Torrance beach that once led to the Hollywood Riviera Beach Club. (Stairs are visible in foreground of vintage aerial photo above; they were remodeled in 2003.) Sept. 2010 photo.

And Just for fun... Here's a picture of me Surfing Burn out that ended up on the second page of the Daily Breeze back in 2003.