History Buff Puts Shine on ‘20s Lodge

Yoram Kahana indulged his passion for the past by purchasing a 1920s-era Knights of Columbus lodge to house his celebrity photo agency Shooting Star International.

“I was not born to work in a high-rise with chrome and plastic partitions,” Kahana said. “I’m a history buff.”

Renovation of the building from Hollywood’s golden era took nearly three years and cost Kahana more than a third of the $1.1-million purchase price. In the process he made some gratifying discoveries.

Underneath the false ceilings, parquet floors and soundproofing put in by a succession of recording studios over the last 50 years, Kahana found a church-like interior with a redwood ceiling, hand-painted beams and a kaleidoscope-like fresco that had been painted over in the stairwell. Kahana preserved and restored all of these in his renovation.

By renting out ground-floor retail space the Knights had put in before they gave up the building near Sunset Boulevard and McCadden Place in 1937, Kahana has been able to cover his mortgage.

When Shooting Star moved into the building in 1991, the downstairs lounge was turned into a gallery to showcase the work of the agency’s photographers. To get to the huge library of celebrity photos and movie stills, staffers climb a winding staircase to the main hall.

Here, a small number of clerks, salespeople and a library manager maintain the photo files and handle orders from magazines, which are the business’ main customers.

Kahana installed French doors on the mezzanine, which open to a wrought iron balcony, another of Kahana’s additions. To send invoices up to this mezzanine floor, which houses accounting, salespeople put the paperwork into a box attached to a rope, which accounting staffers pull up several times a day.

Kahana’s collection of antique furniture and nostalgic collectibles lines the halls of the old building, and fixtures from the old recording studio and pieces of other old buildings have been incorporated into the decor. Onetime recording studio control panels have been fitted with photo light boards for staff members to use as desks, for example. A window frame from a Spanish-style building--Kahana had rescued the frame from a trash bin near his home--was used to replace a kitchen window in the office.

“I wanted to re-create this place as much as possible,” he said. “I can’t bear to see this stuff thrown away.”