The Street Seen: 1559 Ocean Ave (Sunset Inn)
1559 Ocean Avenue @ Colorado Blvd
In 1911, Adolphus Busch, patriarch of the Anheuser-Busch beer brewing empire, builds the Sunset Inn, a restaurant/nightclub on the northeast corner of Colorado Avenue and Ocean Avenue. Once a celebrity hangout, the Sunset Inn never recovers from Santa Monica going dry in 1917. Vacant for 20 years, the Sunset Inn is demolished in 1943.
By 1910, motoring to Santa Monica has become an increasingly easy pastime, and sophisticated restaurants that appeal to a more metropolitan crowd begin to pop up. One of the first is the Sunset Inn, an elaborate restaurant built by Adolphus Busch1 of Anheuser-Busch, on Ocean Avenue at Colorado Boulevard, across Ocean Ave from the Santa Monica Pier.2
The large 2-story-over-basement red-brick structure is designed in St. Louis.3 Los Angeles architect Krempel and Erkes is the local project architect. Ocean Park builder, George Snyder, has the $36,700 contract for the building.4 The main dining room overlooking the ocean is 50 feet wide and 100 feet (along Ocean Ave) in length. A grand double staircase leads up to a roof garden above the main dining hall.
Construction begins in March 1912, the cafe is in operation on May 4, 1912, for the Santa Monica Road Race,5 and the Sunset Inn formally opens on July 24, 1912.
The Sunset Inn is the first Santa Monica restaurant to boast a parking lot with a full-time attendant.6
The Sunset Inn is owned and operated by Anheuser-Busch. When Busch dies in 1913, the Busch estate7 retains ownership but leases its operation.
Baron Long (1915)
In 1915, Baron Long8 obtains a 10-year lease on the Sunset Inn and makes $10,000 of improvements, including a large dancing space in the middle of the dining room.
In March 1917, succumbing to prohibitionist sentiment,9 the City revokes the Sunset Inn’s liquor license,10 and the Sunset Inn closes.11
Mayor S.L. Berkley, a leading prohibitionist, unsuccessfully negotiates with the property owner, Anheuser-Busch, to convert the building into a YMCA facility.
Red Cross (1918)
In 1918, during WWI, Anheuser-Busch turns the Sunset Inn over to the Red Cross for the headquarters of the Santa Monica Bay Cities Red Cross
In 1919, Mayor S.L. Berkley unsuccessfully negotiates with Anheuser-Busch to convert the building into a municipal auditorium.
Reopening(1920)
In 1920, restaurateur Eddie Brandstatter, Jacques Rousso, and Mike Lyman remodel and reopen the ‘dry’ Sunset Inn.
Wednesdays are devoted to performances by Hollywood (silent) actors (fotoplayers).
In 1923, operator Winter Garden’s lease expires, Fotoplayers’ Frolics moves on to the Plantation Cafe in Culver City, and the Sunset Inn closes.
Bay View Club (1926)
In the beach club fad of 1926, Ralph Losey (1889 - 1948), promoter and general manager, opens the Bay View Club in the renovated Sunset Inn building. There is a formal opening in July, but a week later, contractors who are owed money descend on the club and strip it clean of every movable article - furnishings, floor lamps, drapes, and carpets. The undercapitalized club12 is bankrupt and doesn’t reopen.
Demolition (1943)
After unsuccessful attempts13 to repurpose the Sunset Inn, the building (closed since 1926) is condemned by the City and demolished in 1943.
Newcombe (1945)
In 1945, Walter D. Newcomb Jr., now the owner and operator of the Santa Monica Pier, buys the vacant Sunset Inn lot with the intention of developing it.
Recent (1950+)
The property becomes an automobile service center, and then an ever-changing restaurant space.
Adolphus Busch (1839 – 1913), co-founder of Anheuser-Busch with his father-in-law, Eberhard Anheuser (1808 - 1880), adopts Pasadena as his winter home in 1905. By 1909, his mansion and gardens are one of the most popular tourist attractions in Southern California. Busch buys the Colorado Avenue and Ocean Avenue property in July 1910. In 1913, Busch buys the burnt (in the 1912 Ocean Park Pier fire) Decatur Hotel property in Venice. He praises the Southern California climate and announces that he intends to live here year-round, with a summer home planned in Santa Monica. Busch dies in 1913, and his properties are in limbo while his estate is settled.
The long, narrow Santa Monica municipal pier, built in 1909 to carry sewer pipes beyond the breakers, has no amenities. The short, wide adjoining pleasure pier is built to the south in 1916. The Santa Monica pier is a resort of character and refinement, lacking the “honky-tonk” ribaldry that characterized many other seaside resorts. Drinking and gambling have never been permitted.
The 1911 newspapers incorrectly report that Los Angeles architect, A.F. Rosenheim (1859 - 1943), a native of St. Louis, home of Anheuser-Busch, prepared the plans for the Sunset Inn.
The total cost of the Sunset Inn, including structure and furnishings, is $60,000.
The Santa Monica Road Race, one of the country’s premier international road races, is held from 1909 until 1919. The 8.4-mile course runs along Ocean Avenue, up Wilshire Blvd to the Old Soldiers’ Home, and back down San Vicente Blvd.
The Pacific Electric streetcar also stops on Ocean Ave in front of the Sunset Inn.
It is often difficult to distinguish between the Anheuser-Busch Company and the Busch estate.
Baron Long (1883 – 1962). Baron (“Baron” is his given name) Long is born in IN. Long rises from a small-time bad boy to a major player in nightclubs, hotels, and horse racing. The colorful Long is a major influence in hotel and nightclub design, and a close friend of film studio heads. In California in 1917, there is a growing sentiment to restrict or ban alcohol. Until nationwide Prohibition is ratified in 1919, liquor remains legal in “wet” independent city enclaves like Venice and Vernon. When Santa Monica goes dry, Long, the proprietor of the Sunset Inn and the Goodwin Cafe, moves to the Ship Café in Venice and the Vernon Country Club. In 1919, Long buys the U.S. Grant Hotel in San Diego, and is a partner in the Agua Caliente hotel, casino, and racetrack resort in “wet” Tijuana from 1928. He caps his career in 1933 by taking over the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel.
The Sunset Inn’s location makes it a target for the north Santa Monica prohibitionists. Following incidents of public intoxication, entertainers singing suggestive songs, and smoking by women, the Sunset Inn is declared “a menace to the public welfare, public morals, and public decency.”
Although the Sunset Inn is leased and operated by Long, the liquor license is held by Anheuser-Busch agent F.A. Heim (1869 - 1941).
In 1910, in less contentious times, Heim obtains a liquor license for the unbuilt Sunset Inn - in fact, this is a condition for Busch to approve the construction. Heim is again granted a liquor license (selling liquor at table with or without meals) for the newly built Sunset Inn in 1912. The Sunset Inn’s (i.e., Heim’s) liquor license does not expire until June 1918.
On May 1, 1917, Long closes the Sunset Inn at 2 am, and at 6 pm, opens Cafe Nat Goodwin on the Crystal Pier. Long and his partner, Los Angeles attorney Paul Schenck, keep the Goodwin name (Anheuser-Busch owns the Sunset Inn name). When Santa Monica goes dry, they move on to the Ship Cafe in Venice.
The appropriately named Bay View Club is not on the beach. The club features daily evening dinners and dancing. Memberships are sold on a club privileges basis for one month at a rate of $1 per week. Four hundred memberships are sold - like most beach clubs, the memberships are not of the ownership variety.
Shown below is one 1940s proposed alteration and reuse of the Sunset Inn.
