House With a Past

It’s been a dude ranch, an American Legion hall, a gay bar, a country club, a school for Jewish boys and a music venue. And, if the tales are to be believed, it was once an upscale brothel and gambling hangout.

Over its 67-year history, it has also had many designations. Among them: El Rancho Topanga, the Canyon Club, the Sylvia Park clubhouse and the Mermaid Tavern, after Shakespeare’s favorite watering hole.

“Residents around here know it has a fascinating history, and everyone has stories about it,” said Topanga resident Ken York. “It had incarnations I’m proud to say I didn’t participate in.”

Now, the gold limestone Spanish Colonial building in Topanga Canyon is known simply as the Mermaid, and has become a private residence.

In what is a sign of the times, the place is flourishing under Bill Buerge, a publicity-conscious and historically sensitive owner who rents out the grounds for weddings, music videos, films and catalog photo shoots for companies such as Pottery Barn and Smith & Hawken.

The changes at the Mermaid are not unlike those throughout the canyon in the 30 years since the Summer of Love. Former hippies have become parents with mortgages, jobs and children. Baby boomers seeking a healthy environment for their own families have helped boost the canyon’s population from roughly 6,000 to 12,000 residents. The median income is one of the highest in the state. Median property values have risen from around $100,000 in the 1970s to $500,000.

“Traditionally, the core of Topanga has been working class--a lot of teachers, artists, writers, psychologists and tradespeople,” said Susan Nissman, a longtime Topanga resident and county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s field deputy. “That’s been changing over the past 10 years with an

influx of higher incomes, including lawyers and people in the entertainment business.”

It wasn’t always that way.

In the 1970s, the Mermaid was envisioned as a kind of music hall without walls. The club’s owners, classical bassist Mickey Nadel and his former wife, Ann, opened their home to artists from diverse corners of the musical world, including classical, jazz and rock. They also attracted popular acts from Frank Zappa to Oingo Boingo and Little Feat, and well-known patrons like Joni Mitchell.

“They knew this space could be turned into a salon for people to play what they wanted to play, not what they were told to play,” said Patricia Tackett, the wife of Little Feat guitarist Paul Tackett.

The only house rule was breaking society’s rules. “If you could break the rules, some good things would get done,” recalled the former Ann Nadel, who has since become Ann Levy and is living in Northern California.

By most accounts, including those of music reviewers, the Nadels’ experiment off Topanga’s Callon Drive was a success.

But in what was perhaps a telling symbol of the broader changes that were taking place in Topanga Canyon and beyond after the 1960s, the Nadels could not afford to keep up the 2.7-acre property.

By 1976, the shows ended for reasons the couple attributed to mounting regulatory fees. The property, which had fallen into disrepair, was eventually sold to Buerge for $650,000 in 1989.

“The building was in dire straits,” said Renaissance man Buerge, who has built homes and taught illustration as a college professor. He said the structure was listing in places and pulling apart as the foundation lay buckled and cracked.

Buerge set about restoring the ‘40s-era swimming pool, which had doubled as a garden and horse corral and was filled with dirt and garbage. It was not unlike an archeological dig, he said.

“We found a swamp cooler, a motorcycle, plywood, even historical documents,” Buerge said. “It was just a mess.”

But that project was just the beginning of an arduous rebuilding and renovation process that, according to Buerge, has so far cost him more than $1 million and is ongoing despite completion of most major repairs.

The major fixes included replacing and retrofitting the building’s entire foundation, replacing a leaking roof with mission tile, installing new drywall in the 1,500-square-foot great room, and exposing the original wood floors and ceiling beams of Douglas fir.

All the while, Buerge consulted with historians and architects trying to come as close to the feel of the original as possible. Five years ago, Buerge successfully petitioned the state to designate the Mermaid as a historical building.

A tour of the grounds today reveals meticulously landscaped gardens including dense cactuses and native plants, the sparkling pool and panoramic views of the rustic canyon.

Remaining are some hints of six decades of history in which the property changed hands eight times. Patched holes in the floor mark where bar stools once stood, and deep charcoal stains mark the great room fireplace that once warmed roomfuls of smoking, partying patrons.

“The Mermaid” began as an effort to lure home buyers into subdivided land on what was the former Cheney Ranch. Originally known as the Sylvia Park clubhouse, the building cost $10,100 in 1930 and was put up in about 100 days, according to historical documents.

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Back then, there were no telephones, and the roads were dirt. In what was to become a pattern, there was also financial hardship, and the property was unloaded.

According to Buerge, club owners built an oil derrick in the backyard. But instead of finding black gold, they found themselves deeper in the red.

In the 1940s, the property underwent several more changes. During the World War II, it was operated by mobster Mickey Cohen, who put slot machines in the basement and had women upstairs to entertain guests.

Wealthy San Diego landowner Kenneth Walker was next to buy the property, in 1945, according to the Topanga Historical Society. He tried unsuccessfully to develop a dude ranch for youngsters.

In the late 1940s, a rabbi turned the clubhouse into a Jewish boys’ school, and the next decade, war veterans used it as an American Legion Hall.

In the 1960s, a former vice officer for the Santa Monica Police Department purchased the property and turned a profit by opening a gay bar. In an effort to increase square footage--some said to maintain secrecy--he covered the sides of the building with metal sheets. He also cleaned out many of the original Monterey furnishings, which are now quite valuable.

Buerge has acquired one piece of the Mermaid’s original furniture--a large dining room table constructed of oak, with the signature horseshoe burned into its side.

Residents may ask whether the Mermaid, like Topanga itself, is losing something through all the changes. But Mickey Nadel, still a musician and agent, disagrees. “The place has a character that seems to go through everything.”