A Touch of Class at the Beach

It was four years ago that noted L.A.-based restaurateur Michael McCarty (of Michael’s in Santa Monica) began working on a 300-room luxury hotel to be designed by a team of top architects (among them Michael Graves, Philip Johnson and Luis Baragan), which he hoped to open in Santa Monica by summer of 1987.

Well, nothing ever works out quite the way we think it will: The hotel never happened. But earlier this year, McCarty was awarded rights to develop a hostelry on city-owned land on the beach in Santa Monica (where the Sand & Sea Club is now). Recently, he said that preliminary drawings for the hotel are completed and he is beginning the permit process, which he estimates will take about a year. The idea of using superstar architects is gone, but the design by Rick Keating of Skidmore Owens Merrill will incorporate contributions from 20 to 25 top contemporary artists: “Hockney, Robert Graham, Ed Moses, Billy Al Bengston, people like that,” says McCarty.

The Santa Monica Beach Hotel, as it will be called, should have about 175 rooms and will open, he hopes, in the summer of 1991. He plans to have 24-hour room service and full convention and banquet facilities, he says, but only one restaurant in the hotel. “We’re going to try to design the modern ‘90s hotel restaurant,” he adds. “So many people have tried to bring name chefs into hotels and turn the restaurants into something they’re not, and very few of them have succeeded. We want to take care of our guests above all, and function as a hotel restaurant should.”

McCarty’s deal with the city of Santa Monica requires him to build a large facility adjacent to the hotel to serve the general beach-going public. This will be the Santa Monica Community Beach Center, a 17,000-square-foot recreational complex that will include, besides the beach itself, a community meeting hall, arts and environmental programs, and “a great little beach cafe.” McCarty also envisions a fleet of shuttle buses, each painted by a different artist, to bring children and senior citizens to the center from inland areas.

Some are skeptical of his ability to create and successfully run a luxury hotel and a public facility side by side, admits McCarty. “But every great beach in the world has public beaches and private hotels side by side--so why shouldn’t it work here?”

And frequent recent rumors to the contrary, McCarty stresses that, whatever other projects he might be involved in, he has no intention of giving up the original Michael’s.

FISH STORY: Plenty of good fish is caught off the California coastline, but not much of it gets sold in the Southern California market. Not enough of it for the proprietors of Japan’s Ejima restaurant chain, anyway. According to Nation’s Restaurant News, the Tokyo-based firm had hoped to open its first out-of-Japan Ejima in Los Angeles--but ultimately nixed us because the quality of fresh fish available here wasn’t up to their standards. The problem? All the best stuff, according to the Ejima people, gets shipped to Japan.

WHAT’S ON: Il Giardino in Beverly Hills hosts a benefit this afternoon, from noon to 4 p.m., for El Rescate (“The Rescue”), which provides legal, social, educational and advocacy services for Central American refugees in the Los Angeles area. The restaurant will provide antipasto and some 20 wineries will contribute good things to drink. Tickets are $50 each. . . . And the Trancas Restaurant, on the north end of Malibu, hosts a holiday benefit for Child Help, U.S.A. (which cares for abused children at Village Child Help in Beaumont) on December 18 from 2 p.m. to 1 a.m. A $30 donation and a toy will entitle you to a lavish buffet meal and entertainment by local talent--and remember, this is Malibu, so the local talent might be something special indeed.