The Street Seen: Breakers Beach Club
1725 Ocean Front Walk @ Marine Terrace
The Breakers Beach Club, located on the beachfront between the Santa Monica Pier and Pico Blvd, is built in 1926. The Breakers soon falls into bankruptcy - the first of many. Following the Depression, the Breakers becomes a hotel under a series of owners until it is converted to the Sea Castle Apartments in the early 1970s. The building is severely damaged during the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and demolished in 1996.
The Breakers Beach Club is located on the sand on the corner of Marine Terrace and Ocean Front Walk between the Santa Monica Pier and Pico Blvd.
Breakers Beach Club (1926 to 1930)
In 1925, the Breakers Club1 obtains a 99-year ground lease2 on the property on the corner of Marine Terrace and Ocean Front Walk3 from owners the Gore Brothers,4 Sol Lesser,5 and C.L. Langley.6 The $2.42MM ground lease includes 220 ft of beach frontage, half a block north of the Edgewater Beach Club and the Casa Del Mar Club.
The 8-story $0.50MM Breakers Beach Club7 is designed by Los Angeles architect A.B. Rosenthal. 8
The brick clad, Mediterranean Revival-style, reinforced concrete building has 310 sleeping apartments, an indoor swimming pool (plunge), a tunnel to the beach under Ocean Front Walk, and a roof garden. The 1925 building permit9 lists the contractor as Fidelity Construction Company.10
Membership in the Breakers Beach Club is by invitation. Life memberships (for you and your family for 99 years), capped at 2,500 members, are sold for $500 each.
The completed Breakers Beach Club opens in July 1927.
Santa Monica Breakers Club (1930 - 1930)
In 1929, at the onset of the Great Depression, Breakers Club defaults on loan payments.11 In May 1930, the Gore Brothers and C.L. Langley foreclose on Breakers Club,12 cancel the lease, and take over the club.13 Harry M. Sugarman,14 for owners Gore Brothers and Langley, reopens a completely refurnished and redecorated facility under the name the Santa Monica Breakers Club.
Club Lido (1930 - 1931)
Lido Holding Corp acquires the Breakers Club lease for $0.70MM. The remodeled Club Lido opens on New Year’s Eve, 1930, and files for bankruptcy in August 1931.
Hollywood Beach Club (1931 - 1932)
Harry M. Sugarman obtains a long-term lease from the Gore Brothers and Langley owners. Club Lido becomes the Hollywood Beach Club. Members of the former Club Lido are allowed full privileges in the new club.
All-States Club (1932 - 1932)
The All-States Club is a meeting place for groups of former residents of other states.
Grand Hotel (1932 to 1937)
After extensive alterations and refurbishing, Allied Properties, a property owning division of Pacific States Savings & Loan,15 opens the Grand Hotel in July 1932.
In 1934, the Jonathan Club, leaving the Edgewater, briefly leases the Grand Hotel, before taking over the Beverly Beach Club on PCH in 1935.
Waverly Club (1938 to 1944)
In 1938, still under Allied Properties ownership, the Grand Hotel returns to a membership club - the Waverly Club
World War II (1943 to 1945)
In 1943, during World War II, the US Army Air Forces commandeer (acquire by condemnation leasehold) the Pacific State Savings & Loan owned building, transforming it into a rest and rehabilitation center.
Chase Hotel (1946 to 1957)
In 1946, in a court-ordered sale of Pacific State Savings & Loan properties,16 Los Angeles real estate dealer Harry Jaffe17 buys the Waverly Club for $0.26MM.
Jaffe opens the facility as the 155-room Chase Hotel.
Hotel Monica (1957 to 1971)
In 1957, Jaffe undertakes a $0.6MM remodel and refurbishment, and renames the updated facility, Hotel Monica. In 1961,18 Jaffe loses the Hotel Monica when San Diego land developer C.W. Carlstrom (1905 - 1976) forecloses on the mortgage.
Hotel Monica continues to operate through 1971.19
Sea Castle Apartments (1972 to 1994)
In 1972, with a low-interest $2.30MM loan guaranteed by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Urban Housing20 converts the Hotel Monica to the 178-unit Sea Castle Apartments.21
From 1976 through 1980, HUD manages the property as mortgagee-in-possession. In 1979, the City establishes comprehensive rent control in Santa Monica. However, as the Sea Castle Apartments is financed by HUD, higher federal maximum rents preempt the rents set by the Santa Monica Rent Control Board.
In 1980, Monica Apartments Investment Company acquires the property. In 1990,22 the Sea Castle Apartments owner, Robert Braun, announces his intention to go out of the rental business under the Ellis Act and evict the nearly 400 tenants of the Sea Castle Apartments. Legal wrangling ensues.
Demolition (1996)
In January 1994, the Northridge Earthquake causes extensive structural damage, and the building is red-tagged.23 The estimated cost of repairs is $7.50MM, and to enable repairs, the City exempts the building from rent control. The City, the owner, and the (now displaced) tenants resume their wrangling. 24
In February 1996, a fire breaks out in the fenced-off Sea Castle Apartments.25 The City condemns the building,26 and demolishes it in 1996.27
A replacement building, the Sea Castle Apartments, is built in 1998.
Harry L. Lewis is the president of the Breakers Club of Southern California.
A 99-year ground lease is traditionally seen as the longest practical term of a lease of real property without it being considered perpetual. A ground lease offers tax advantages over selling, and is often transferable and treated as essentially equivalent to ownership.
Breakers Beach Club property on the corner of Marine Terrace and Ocean Front Walk is comprised of the 220-ft x 125-ft Lot 1 to Lot 5, and the sand (now State-owned) 220-ft x 155-ft Lot A to Lot E of the Tract 542 of 1911.
The Gore Brothers, Michael (1878 - 1953) and Abe (1884 - 1951), are influential movie theater owners in early 20th-century Los Angeles. In the 1920s, the Gore Brothers have significant Ocean Park entertainment interests. They, with Sol Lesser, form the Ocean Park Realty Corporation, which obtains a 50-year lease on the Fraser Pier following the 1924 fire. In 1926, the Ocean Park Realty Corporation leases the Ocean Park Bath House.
Sol Lesser (1890 - 1980) is a prolific Hollywood movie producer.
Claude Leroy Langley (1875 – 1942) opens the Alex Theatre in Glendale, named for his son Claude Alexander, and the Rialto Theatre in South Pasadena. Langley sells his 1/3 interest in the West Coast-Langley chain of 21 movie theatres in 1925.
Breakers is a popular name. In 1925, there is some local area confusion between the Breakers Hotel in Long Beach, the proposed Breakers Hotel in Hermosa Beach, and the entirely separate Breakers Beach Club in Santa Monica.
West Coast architect Alexander Benjamin Rosenthal (1875 - 1945) specializes in movie theatre design in early 20th-century Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. He is best known for designing the Spanish-Moorish style Granada Theatre (1924) in Santa Barbara and the California Theatre (1918) in Los Angeles.
Building permits for the Breakers (1725 Ocean Front Walk), including the original 1925 permit, are on file with the City.
Fidelity Construction Company is the general contractor for the Breakers Beach Club at the beginning of the project. However, it seems that Arthur Bard & Company, also working on the Casa Del Mar, finishes the Breakers Beach Club.
The Breakers Club issues $0.45MM bonds to finance the construction of Breakers Beach Club. In April 1929, the Breakers Club defaults on its bond payments, and the building and the lease are sold to Frank N. Fish, one of the largest bondholders, for the small sum of $0.03MM. In 1930, the courts set aside this sale. In 1932, Fish, president of the American Mortgage Co., is in San Quentin prison on account of missing investor funds when American Mortgage fails.
In 1926, Breakers Club president Lewis announces plans for a $1.00MM 13-story (max height) clubhouse in downtown Los Angeles and an 18-hole golf course country club somewhere between downtown Los Angeles and the Breakers Beach Club. All three facilities will be covered by a single Breakers Club membership. Lewis Arthur Smith (1869 – 1958) is to design the downtown clubhouse and the country club. Arthur Bard is the contractor. Neither the downtown clubhouse nor the country club come to fruition.
In 1930, the courts find that the Breakers Club owes $0.11MM to beach club building suppliers Hammond Lumber, Felt House, and Llewellyn Iron Works.
Born in London, Harry M. “Sugie” Sugarman (1899 - 1972) starts his theatrical career at 14, as a theatre usher in Redlands, CA. He builds the West Coast Junior Circuit of movie theaters and, after selling, becomes president of Gore Brothers, prior to its sale to Fox West Coast. In Oct 1932, Sugarman becomes the manager of the reopened Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Sugarman is a founder of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Allied Properties is the property owning subsidiary of Pacific States Savings & Loan. In addition to the Grand Hotel, Allied Properties is also the operating owner of the Georgian Hotel (1415 Ocean Ave) and the Sovereign Apartments (205 Washington Ave). In 1939, the State Building and Loan Commissioner seizes the business and assets of Pacific States Savings & Loan Company. Robert S. Odell, President, and Gerald R. White, Vice President of Pacific States Saving & Loan, are both charged with violating the Bankruptcy Act by destroying records.
The Waverly Club is one of nine Pacific State Savings & Loan properties sold by the court for a total of $0.39MM.
Harry Jaffe (1907 – 1979) is a Los Angeles real estate dealer operating as the Jaffe Realty Co.
In 1958, Harry Jaffe sells the Hotel Monica to Southern California’s biggest drive-in restaurant operator, Stan Meadows. However, the property seems to quickly revert to Jaffe ownership.
In 1971, in preparation for conversion to the Sea Castle Apartments, all of the Hotel Monica furniture is sold.
Urban Housing Co, headed by Dudley C Knill (1937 – 2016), buys and redevelops troubled buildings, then leases them to agencies involved in federally subsidized rental housing. His father, Herbert Knill (1909 – 1991), is the on-site property manager at the Sea Castle Apartments.
In 1973, to convert the 155-unit Hotel Monica into the 178-unit Sea Castle Apartments, the low north (former dining) and south (former pool) wings of the Hotel Monica are significantly altered.
In 1990, a 40-ft x 132-ft mural is painted on the south side of the Sea Castle Apartments.
In 1986, the Sea Castle Apartments are refinanced, thereby extinguishing the HUD-insured mortgage and terminating federal involvement with the property. In 1989, the courts rule that the HUD preemption has expired, and the maximum rents must revert to the lower rents set by the Santa Monica Rent Control Board.
In September 1994, when tenants are allowed to reenter the Sea Castle Apartments (for 4 hours) to remove personal items, they find widespread damage from water, birds, rodents, and vandals.
In 1990, building owner Braun faces foreclosure over a defaulted mortgage loan.
A sprinkler system that Braun had been forced to install at the Sea Castle Apartments is disabled by the earthquake and does not activate in the 1996 fire.
The City determines that Sea Castle Apartments poses an “imminent threat to the public” -it is structurally unsound, poses a continuing fire risk, and contains asbestos.
The owner of the Sea Castle Apartments cannot obtain funds to demolish the condemned building. The City spends $0.69MM to demolish it and places a lien against the property.