The Street Seen: Bristol Pier
Hollister Avenue @ Ocean Front Walk
In 1907, the Hollister Avenue Pier Company buys the White Star Pier out of foreclosure proceedings. Buildings on the “L” shaped White Star Pier are removed and replaced, and the pier is renamed the Bristol Pier. In 1911, the deteriorated Bristol Pier closes for repairs.
By 1905, inter-urban Red Car electric trolleys bring the beach within easy reach for people from all over Los Angeles. Entrepreneurs in Venice and Ocean Park build amusement piers, with roller coasters, dance halls, and other attractions to entertain them.
Hollister Avenue Pier Company
By 1907, the two-year-old White Star Pier at the foot of Hollister has changed hands several times. The White Star Pier is bought out of foreclosure proceedings by the newly formed Hollister Avenue Pier Company.1 Prominent architects and contractors are hired to renovate the pier.
The buildings on the “L” shaped White Star Pier are removed. Los Angeles architect Alfred Rosenheim designs a large dining hall for the end of the pier. The Hollister Ave entrance to the pier is revised, and the pier wood-plank surface is paved with asphalt. The bathhouse, removed from the pier, is placed on the beach just north of the pier.
Pioneer Los Angeles building contractor, John Rebman, has the $27,350 contract for the structural alterations - not including the large dining room.
Bristol Pier Café
The new dining room is on the “L” at the end of the pier - 900 ft from the pier entrance at Hollister Ave.
The 272-ft x 96-ft dining room is free of interior columns and has seating for 800. Los Angeles restaurateurs Schneider & Feiber2 take a 10-year lease of the Bristol Pier Café, and the pier is renamed the Bristol Pier.
Bristol Pier Opening
The Bristol Pier, remodeled at a cost of $160,000, reopens in June 1907. The 21-piece Donatelli’s Concert Band plays at the bandstand in the “T” in the middle of the pier.
Lycurgus Lindsay
In 1910, mining millionaire Lycurgus Lindsay3 quietly buys the Bristol Pier (in addition to 1,000-ft of beach sand property adjacent to the pier). The Bristol Pier is under new management.
Schneider & Fieber (now organized as the Bristol Café Catering and Amusement Company) include free vaudeville at the Bristol Pier Café.
Close for Repairs
In 1911, except for the Long Wharf, the Bristol Pier is the only remaining wooden piling pier on the Bay. In December 1911, a City inspection finds that the pier, weakened by marine borers and storms, is in no condition to withstand a strong storm. The condition of the pier continues to deteriorate as the December 1911 and January 1912 winter storms batter the wooden structure. Dislodged and drifting piling poses a danger to other piers. The Bristol Pier closes for repairs.
Crystal Pier
In January 1912, pier owner Lycurgus Lindsay decides to remove the outer end of the Bristol Pier and rename the pier the Crystal Pier.
The directors of the Hollister Avenue Pier Company are William Z. McDonald, president, Willis George Emerson, Wilbur Osgood Emerson, W.E. Donaghoe, and J.E. McDonald. Willis George Emerson is a novelist, newspaperman, lawyer, politician, and promoter. The other directors are local real estate dealers. The local newspapers are dubious that the Hollister Avenue Pier Company is the actual owner of the Bristol Pier.
William Schneider (1870 – 19??) and Jacob Charles Fieber (1866 - 1924) own the 2,000-seat downtown Los Angeles Café Bristol, opened in 1904 in the basement of the Herman W. Hellman Building (designed by Alfred Rosenheim).
In October 1907, Schneider & Fieber sell the Bristol Pier Café to Charles Usher for $35,000, but return to the Bristol Pier Café again in June 1908 when Usher files for bankruptcy.
In March 1911, Schneider & Feiber lose their downtown Los Angeles Café Bristol liquor license in a police sting (selling liquor without serving a meal). They close their downtown Café Bristol and bring their restaurant equipment and employees to the Bristol Pier.
In December 1911, when the pier closes for repairs, the Bristol Pier Café closes and never re-opens. In 1912, Bristol Café Catering and Amusement Company investors file suit against Schneider & Feiber for dissipating investor funds.
Lycurgus Lindsay (1859 - 1931). Lindsay leverages a Kansas and Texas grain and cattle business into a mining empire in Sonora, Mexico, and Nogales, Arizona.
In 1905, Lindsay moves to Los Angeles, where he acquires the Western Art Tile Works, producing innovative hollow terra cotta masonry blocks.
In 1910, Lindsay quietly buys a stretch of beach sand property in Ocean Park. Lindsay and the City wrestle over several issues regarding his plans for the property.