Another Fine Myth : Fight Goes On to Save Redondo Beach Home Where Stan Laurel Never Slept

For decades, the rumors floated that the modest bungalow surrounded by a forest of tall trees in Redondo Beach had been the weekend hideaway of Stan Laurel--the skinny half of Laurel and Hardy.

Real estate agents whispered to prospective clients viewing homes that this was where Laurel came to get away from it all. Neighbors boasted that the entertainer had rested his head inside the 1935 Colonial Revival bungalow on Curtis Avenue.

Even the current owner, Kryl Snyder, who bought the property in 1960 from Lois Laurel, the first of the comedian’s four wives, maintained that the Laurel family spent weekends there.

So when the famous weekend getaway spot was threatened with demolition to make way for four condominiums and 10 parking spaces, a hue and a cry went up.

Leading the protest was Odette Leonelli, a resident who recently discovered the spot one morning while jogging. She was attracted to the setting and became even more enthusiastic about saving the trees and bungalow when she learned that Stan Laurel had stayed there.

But the truth turns out to be a far cry from the legend.

Stan Laurel never spent a single night in the house.

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Neighbors and real estate agents were stunned to learn that the special corner on their street wasn’t the weekend home of Stan Laurel. “Oh, gosh,” said Jerre Reddy, 55, who has lived near the bungalow for more than 30 years. “A long time ago I heard it was built for a movie star.”

“Isn’t it amazing how that whole story got spun,” said real estate agent Marie Hoffman, who said she heard from other realty agents that Laurel had lived there. “We had [fantasies of] Hollywood having beach parties there.”

The news takes some of the gusto out of Leonelli’s efforts to save this bucolic patch of Redondo Beach, where the streets are lined with look-alike stucco condominiums in a city with so many condos it is jokingly called Recondo Beach. But that won’t stop her.

“I don’t care who lived there. I still want to save it,” Leonelli said in her lyrical Italian accent, standing in the huge frontyard where many of the property’s 17 trees stand. Butterflies floated through the air. Pigeons cooed a morning melody.

Leonelli plans to go to the city Planning Commission meeting Thursday, when the property’s fate will be decided, to protest the proposed demolition.

Neighbors back her. “It would be a wonderful place to restore,” said Jacque Farris, who lives across the street from the old bungalow. “It looks like something out of the movies.”

Resident Maury Espelin noted: “It has an antiquity about it that adds to the neighborhood.”

The truth about the property came to light when Leonelli phoned Stan Laurel’s only daughter, Lois Hawes, 69, who lives in the San Fernando Valley, to get more information on the bungalow. Hawes had never heard of anyone in her family spending time in Redondo Beach.

A title search by Title Land Co. revealed that Hawes’ mother, Lois Laurel, who was divorced from the comedian in 1935, had owned the bungalow from 1954 to 1960. Called again, Hawes remembered that her mother bought the place for a friend who was about to lose the property through foreclosure. But no one in the Laurel family stayed there.

It is unclear whether the current owner knew that the famous comedian, who died in 1965, never stayed there. Snyder, 72, said he bought the bungalow from Lois Laurel for his family.

“It was their beach house and they stayed there on weekends,” he said recently. Later, he declined to comment on Hawes’ revelations.

After purchasing the place, Snyder said, he tacked on a couple of bedrooms and bathrooms, enlarged the living room and modernized the kitchen. He and his family lived in the house until 1972, when Snyder moved to Manhattan Beach.

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His sister remained in the house until she died in November. Snyder decided to sell the house to a condominium developer in Redondo Beach.

What distinguishes the bungalow from its surroundings of modern stucco structures is the vast property it sits on and its colonial character.

While other homes are crammed onto small lots, the bungalow sits on two lots dotted with several kinds of trees that create a park-like effect, enticing passersby to peek in.

It was this tranquil garden setting that lured Leonelli. Once past the wrought iron and brick fence, she sat down on a concrete bench, leaned against a tree and stayed for several minutes enjoying the cool breeze.

“This place really touched a spot in my heart,” she said.

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Leonelli, a pharmacist who came to the United States in 1989, was reminded in some ways of her native Lucca, a medieval town outside Florence where buildings more than 6 centuries old still stand.

That’s why she would like to save this patch of Redondo Beach from redevelopment. But she may have an uphill battle.

Redondo Beach has never been known for a strong sense of historic preservation. The city’s old downtown, centered along a narrow strip of land west of Catalina Avenue, disappeared almost entirely during the late 1960s and early 1970s amid redevelopment projects that included blocks of condominiums.

An ordinance was passed in 1989 in a fledging effort to preserve some of the city’s architectural heritage. A Historic Preservation Commission was set up, and two historic districts--several homes on the 300 block of Gertruda Avenue and five structures on the 200 block of north Catalina Avenue--were established.

The Redondo Beach Historic Preservation Commission, however, is powerless to save the old bungalow if the owner is not willing to have it designated a historic structure, commission member Jim McLeod said. And Snyder is not offering to do that.

But adversity will not stop Leonelli.

“In my country, we love the American spirit and the happy-ever-after ending,” Leonelli said. “And that’s what I’m looking for. A happy ending.”