Beach Club to Make Way for Luxury Hotel
Santa Monica has chosen a noted restaurateur to demolish one of the last private beach clubs along the one-time “Gold Coast” and replace it with a luxury hotel.
For members of the venerable Sand and Sea Club, it may be the end of an era. But for the city, the decision means a million dollars a year for beach repairs, plus thousands more for added public amenities.
Ending a six-year debate over what should be done with the valuable five-acre piece of beach, the City Council voted 6 to 1 early Wednesday to choose a development team headed by Michael McCarty, owner of Michael’s Restaurant in Santa Monica, to build a $300-a-night, 148-room hotel and community center. The Sand and Sea Club has operated at the Pacific Coast Highway site for three decades.
Under the city’s action, the Sand and Sea’s white clapboard, green-shuttered clubhouse and cabanas will be torn down. Only the North House, last vestige of what was once actress Marion Davies’ estate, will be preserved. Davies, famed mistress of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, built the estate in the Roaring ‘20s, when movie moguls dotted the Gold Coast with their personal palaces.
But that time is long past, overtaken by officials’ concerns that the $20-million plot of land--which is owned by the state and managed by the city--be put to a use that generates more income and expands public access to the beach.
Santa Monica’s choice of developers, however, left losing bidders and others questioning whether one form of exclusivity was being traded for another.
McCarty’s proposal calls for 850-square-foot hotel rooms with balconies, with 30 artists contributing to the design. The $300-a-night cost was projected for 1993, the expected third year of operation.
City officials responded to criticisms of the high-priced facility by saying that revenue from it will offset costs of other, public-oriented facilities for the popular beach.
Last year, 11 developers submitted proposals to the city for the property. They ranged from a modest plan by a group of Sand and Sea members who wanted to keep the site largely the way it is, to the McCarty group proposal, by far the most ambitious.
All proposals met a state requirement that occupants of the land pay at least $500,000 annually to the city’s beach fund. The Sand and Sea pays only $120,000 a year, operating on a month-to-month lease since 1981 and a 20-year lease before that.
The city’s $2.7-million beach fund, most of which comes from parking fees, has fallen short of costs for needed repairs and improvements along the 3 miles of beach in Santa Monica, officials say.
Projects Put Off
“For the third year in a row, we’ve had to cut capital improvements,” Assistant City Manager Lynne C. Barrette said. “We can’t repair potholes. We can’t clean and repair restrooms. (Pay for) lifeguards is going up.”
The city’s staff still must negotiate details of the agreement with McCarty and his partners and approvals must be obtained from the state Coastal Commission and other agencies. But their proposal calls for a $42.2-million complex including the hotel, 100 extra public parking spaces, two restaurants, 500 lockers and other day-use beach facilities, and a $200,000-a-year subsidy to the Westside Arts Center.
The group also plans to convert the 7,000-square-foot North House into an “art and environment” center that would be used year round by students, senior citizens and others.
McCarty guarantees $1 million a year in rent to the city and $685,500 in public-access subsidies, amounts considerably higher than competing bidders.
McCarty’s partners in the venture, named Santa Monica Beach Hotel and Community Center, are Dominion Property Co., builders of Santa Monica’s Sea Colony condominiums; Gerald J. Inzerillo, former general manager of Four Seasons hotels in Texas, and architect Richard Keating.
McCarty, 35, said the hotel project is something he has wanted to pursue for a long time.
Others Bitter
“I drive by the site every day, twice a day,” he said. “I think it’s the beginning of a spectacular project. . . . We are building not only a great hotel but one of the foremost public-access-usage facilities that will ever exist on the coast.”
Some developers who lost out to McCarty were bitter, saying the city had deceived them into thinking it preferred a less expensive hotel on the site.
“When I heard the news, I thought I was in a Carlos Castaneda novel on separate realities. I thought it was La Jolla, not Santa Monica,” said Michael Dieden, a consultant representing a team headed by Douglas Badt, manager of the Sand and Sea, who presented a proposal for a 131-room hotel and public swimming pool.
“I don’t think public access is $300-a-night rooms, I don’t think it’s $10 Evian water,” Dieden told the council. “I don’t think it’s art. I think it’s being a human being. I think it’s commitment; I think it’s 25 years of having the disabled community, the senior community, our children, our schools, doing a public access program. . . .”
Most disappointed were the members of the Sand and Sea Club, about 200 of whom had formed a group, the Santa Monica Beach Preservation Assn., to maintain the club facilities. Under its proposal, the association would raise club membership fees to meet the higher rent requirement and expand the club’s current public-access programs, including addition of a summer camp for children.
$1,500-a-Year Dues
Representatives of the club, which sits at the foot of Santa Monica’s bluffs, contend that the facility is not exclusive or elitist, comparing it more to a YMCA than a fancy playground for the rich.
About 700 families pay annual dues of $1,500 to use the club, and the waiting list has about 250 names, according to Badt. The club does not discriminate on the basis of race or religion, he said, and although it has developed as a predominantly Jewish club, the membership includes some blacks and Latinos. There also are programs to allow some use by handicapped people, schoolchildren and other non-members.
The Sand and Sea “is a unique kind of asset you won’t find anywhere else on the coast,” said Charles Greenberg, attorney for the club group. “If this goes, a whole way of life will be unavailable to the public, just lost. The only thing left will be the (nearby) Jonathan Club and the fancy ones with exclusive memberships. That’s a shame.”
He said his clients wanted to take what the club has now--including what was once Marion Davies’ pool--and make it available to more people.
“The club represents a whole era, a whole life style, an embracing of the traditional Southern California beach life style that should be made available to the broadest cross-section of people,” Greenberg said.
In many ways, the Sand and Sea was living on borrowed time, some officials said, protected this long by powerful political allies of club members.
Indeed, in a move that would delay Sand and Sea’s eviction, state Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) has introduced a provision into the state budget that would allow the current occupant at 415 Pacific Coast Highway to remain there until the new occupant has obtained all necessary permits, city officials said.
But increasingly, a private or semi-private club on public land appears to be an anachronism.
“The land is so valuable,” said Alan C. Scott, senior land agent of the state Lands Commission. “From an economic standpoint, it demands a more intense use. I’m not saying it’s right; it’s just that way.”
