Longtime Fans Come Out to Try to Save the Golden Bear

“Stop the High Rise!” and “Save the Bear” read the placards waving in the winter sunshine outside Orange County’s oldest nightclub Sunday.

But the rally to save the Golden Bear from the wrecker’s ball was more like a wake as nostalgia buffs and rock fans of all ages gathered to reminisce and prowl through the dank recesses of the empty Mediterranean-style concert hall in Huntington Beach.

“I was here when Lenny Bruce was here for seven nights in 1966,” said Benton T. Asbury, 41, astride his three-speed bicycle. “That’s when he wasn’t funny anymore, when he was, you know, serious.

Fight With City

“The City Council swore he’d never open. We had to work like crazy for two weeks to get everything up to code so they couldn’t shut us down,” recalled Asbury, who has worked off and on for three decades as cook, bartender and bouncer at the landmark club on Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street.

Over the last quarter-century, the Golden Bear has played host to many of the biggest names in folk and rock music: Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, B. B. King, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Lovin’ Spoonful and Huey Lewis & the News.

Aspiring entertainers Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne polished their craft in its intimate clubhouse setting. Poet Charles Bukowski gave legendary drunken readings, and comedians like Steve Martin and Robin Williams broke in new material.

“America’s musical tradition has cemented itself brick by brick here,” said C. P. Welch, owner of the Atomic Records shop a few blocks away. “For every brick, there are 100 memories.”

Signatures Gathered

Those memories are what Welch and other Huntington Beach residents are determined to see preserved. They have gathered 2,500 signatures--800 on Sunday alone--on petitions supporting restoration that they plan to present to the City Council on Tuesday.

But with the eviction last month of club owners Richard and Charles Babiracki as part of bankruptcy reorganization proceedings, the property owners are ready to raze the building because it has been declared seismically unsafe by the city.

In its place, a 300-room hotel of eight to 12 stories has been proposed as a keystone to a major redevelopment plan for downtown Huntington Beach.

So far, the Golden Bear has been spared demolition while Huntington Beach officials and a local volunteer historical committee evaluate the historic importance and architectural significance of the structure.

The report to the council on downtown historic buildings is due this week, but historian Barbara Milkovich said the committee needs at least another 30 days to adequately research the importance of the Golden Bear and others in the proposed redevelopment area.

Built in 1929, the Golden Bear started out as a popular chicken dinner house on the road between Los Angeles and San Diego, Milkovich said. It was designed by prominent Southern California architect Ernest Ridenour and, as such, may have important architectural significance, she said.

Rehabilitation Sought

Some of the preservationists milling in front of the Golden Bear said Sunday that they would be satisfied if the stucco facade and plaster ornamentation is saved and linked to any new structure.

But Milkovich advocates rehabilitating the Golden Bear and its next-door neighbor, a vacant auto supply house designed and built by the same architect in the mid-1920s, to make them seismically safe.

“We know it’s possible. . . . Now what we need to do is prove it was a definite historic site back in the ‘20s and ‘30s,” she said.

Whether the building survives, most concede that the Golden Bear nightclub is no more.

Club Is ‘So Far Gone’

“It’s so far gone, I just don’t see how we could ever come back,” said waitress Pamela McVeigh, 24, as she surveyed the debris scattered over the mildewed carpet and pointed to the seat at the club where she first saw New Riders of the Purple Sage during her sophomore year in high school.

McVeigh said the owners are actively searching for a new home and may be signing a lease in a new facility in the near future. Whether they will be able to retain the name “Golden Bear” is questionable, particularly with efforts going on to preserve the structure.

Still, fans like Asbury hope the tradition of 25 years will linger. “It’s an institution,” he explained.

Overhead, the black lettering on the marquee read: “The Bear will live again and forever.”