EARTHQUAKE: THE LONG ROAD BACK : Derby Demolition Begins Amid Protests

Once the epitome of old Hollywood elegance, the Brown Derby restaurant on Vine Street was being demolished Monday despite protests from preservationists that the vacant and earthquake-damaged building could have been restored.

Part of the nightspot complex where Clark Gable proposed marriage to Carole Lombard was ripped down after a 1987 fire, but about half was kept--a temporary victory for the Hollywood Heritage preservationist group. Now, some state officials and aficionados of Los Angeles history fear that the Brown Derby’s total demolition sets a bad precedent for other pre-World War II buildings harmed in last week’s temblor.

“Are we going to lay down our bodies in front of the bulldozers? No. There are too many buildings that need to be saved. But what we are asking for is a sensible, orderly process to examine these buildings,” said historical preservationist William Delvac.

State law requires that officially designated historic landmarks damaged in natural disasters be specially inspected with an eye toward reconstruction--unless the building presents imminent danger to people and other property. The Brown Derby on Vine Street is on the National Register of Historic Places as part of a large landmark district on and near Hollywood Boulevard.

Los Angeles city inspectors ruled that the collapsing roof and crumbling brick walls posed immediate threats and they issued a demolition permit Friday.

However, Wayne Donaldson, chairman of the State Historical Building Safety Board, drew a different conclusion after viewing the Brown Derby’s exterior Thursday as part of an area tour by concerned state officials.

“Our opinion is that those portions that are damaged could be reconstructed and strengthened. There is no need to demolish it,” Donaldson said Monday. Danger could be avoided by cordoning off the building with protected walkways until further studies are done, he added.

On Monday, workmen were tearing out roof timbers from the three-story Spanish Revival structure, which was designed in part by Carl Jules Weyl, architect of the Warner Brothers studio. Soon after its opening on Valentine’s Day, 1929, the Brown Derby on Vine Street was a center of movie-star social life and film deal-making until the industry drifted further west.

“You can’t save that building. It’s all cracked up,” said Jodie Wilson, who was hired by George Ullman Jr., one of the owners, to supervise the demolition.

Wilson pointed through the elaborate wrought iron gate, complete with the initials B.D., that once opened from Vine Street to the Brown Derby’s cocktail lounge. Insidewas a jumble of fallen beams and bricks, although it was impossible to determine whether most of that mess was caused by the demolition crew, by the earthquake, by squatters who vandalized the building after its 1985 closure or by fires in 1987 and 1990.

Hollywood historian Ken Schessler recalls happier times when the Brown Derby on Vine was by far the most important of the various eateries in Los Angeles that shared the name. “When you walked into that place, you felt like you were walking into some kind of sacred ground,” he said Monday. “It was the hangout of just about everybody and a lot of business was done there, too.”

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The dining room was lined with autographed caricatures of stars from the 1920s through the ‘60s. Columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons conducted many celebrity interviews there. Producers Cecil B. De Mille and Jack Warner were among the restaurant’s financial backers.

The Hollywood Brown Derby had representations of its namesake hat only on its floor and on its sign. The original Brown Derby coffee shop on Wilshire Boulevard, near the Ambassador Hotel, had a roof built in 1926 to look like a derby; that big hat now crowns a mini-mall where the Wilshire eatery once stood. Subsequent Brown Derby restaurants operated at various times in Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Los Feliz and another Hollywood location.

City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who represents Hollywood, said she hopes the city’s Building and Safety Department does not act so hastily at other damaged historic sites. “I’m very disappointed. We certainly wanted to explore the opportunity to save the building, but we were told that we don’t have a choice when it’s dangerous,” Goldberg said.

Hollywood Heritage official Christine O’Brien contended that the earthquake damage is a pretext to allow the owners to achieve their long-held goal of razing the Brown Derby for a parking lot. O’Brien alleged that the owners had allowed the building to decay for the past few years.

Calls to owners George Ullman Jr., developer Larry Worchell and the Shilling Trust were not returned Monday. They are affiliated with the Ullman’s Grant Parking firm, which owns adjacent parking lots that will be extended onto the entire Brown Derby site.

Frank Buckley, a managing partner of the Ramsey Shilling realty firm handling the property, confirmed that the owners wanted a parking lot there. But he asserted that they explored renovation before the earthquake and tried many times to attract new restaurants and other tenants.

Vandals had stripped the remaining rooms of their architectural value, Buckley said. “It was in very bad shape before the earthquake,” he added.

Hollywood Heritage activists had planned a rally in front of the Brown Derby on Valentine’s Day, which would have been the restaurant’s 65th anniversary. That protest over the buiding’s decay is now being converted into a funeral.

“We’ll have a motorcade and roses,” said O’Brien. “It will be a sad ending.”