Hollywood’s first super club, Avalon, opened its...

Hollywood’s first super club, Avalon, opened its doors Monday the old-fashioned way: no red carpet, no velvet rope and no glitterati. What 800 ticket-holders did get was an acoustically phenomenal musical treat by Leaves and Stereophonics and the prospect of a new day for Los Angeles nightlife.

“It’s unbelievable that this is where I used to come as a kid for rock concerts and they’ve turned it into this,” said Vanessa Kitchell, 34, an Eagle Rock schoolteacher. “It’s not even finished but already it’s so different. It has a classier feel to it. It’s an amazing place to come see a show. Anybody who was a regular here knows how bad the sound always was. They did a great job with that.”

Far from finished -- workers were literally stapling carpets and painting walls minutes before the show, several pieces of furniture were missing and not all of the bars were installed -- Avalon also will house a restaurant and separate VIP club that will make the venue distinctive, for now, at least in Los Angeles. A sister club unveiled last weekend in New York City.

With the Hollywood venue housed in the 76-year-old Palace on Vine Street and the N.Y. Avalon taking over the coveted Limelight space in Chelsea, owners John Lyons and Steve Adelman made a little history by capitalizing on history. The partners spent $6 million renovating both.

“We couldn’t build venues like this if we wanted to,” said Adelman, 40. “These are two landmark properties and the timing just worked in our favor.”

The timing for the opening, however, did not. A delay in the issuance of the building permits meant the Palace’s interior could be demolished but Avalon could not be erected until two weeks ago.

“It’s been so crazy,” said project manager Lyle Schmidtchen of Brackett Construction, who was checking out the building during the Leaves’ performance with a beer in his hand. “I’ve never built a club in 10 days before. I’m just glad we made the show.”

And so was Lyons, a 47-year-old nightclub veteran, who remained collected even as painters were still transforming the gaudy royal blue facade to patina three days before opening night. The main ingredients -- Avalon’s advanced sound, lighting and acoustical treatments -- and a strong early lineup of artists and bands, including Liz Phair and Lisa Marie Presley, were enough to open the club’s doors, Lyons and Adelman figured.

“That’s not the way we originally planned it, but we were committed to the bands already. It still needs a lot of finishes but as long as the sound works, that’s my biggest concern,” said Lyons, as the pristine sound of an acoustic guitar playing in the background reassured him.

Adelman and Lyons, already forces in the nightclub industry on the East Coast, set their sights on the City of Angels two years ago. Lyons, who owns 24 nightclubs and restaurants in the Boston and New York areas with his brother, Patrick, and Adelman, an impresario who joined them five years ago, wanted to establish one of their mega clubs on the West Coast.

But first they needed a location and a venue that could serve simultaneously as a live performance stage and theater, a dance club, a restaurant and a private lounge. And they needed a building that would support a massive sound system, light show and large crowds.

“The two of us had been coming out here and meeting with Realtors and looking at spaces,” Lyons said. “We had a couple of false starts, so I’d drive up and down the streets looking and one day, I saw the Palace. I thought, ‘Could that be it?’ ”

The partners might have been sold, but the landmark Vine Street venue wasn’t for sale. Owner Kay Neil Wint, an attorney who purchased it in 1990, treasured its stellar, multi-dimensional history and didn’t want to let it go.

Originally built as a vaudeville theater called the Hollywood Playhouse in 1927, the building went through several reincarnations that included live radio CBS broadcasts in the ‘40s and NBC’s productions of television icons “This Is Your Life” and “The Merv Griffin Show” in the ‘50s.

Artists such as Frank Sinatra, the Beatles and Prince have performed there over the years. It became the Hollywood Palace in the ‘60s and remained as a television studio until 1978, when a businessman converted it into a nightclub and dance venue. Under Wint, the club was known mostly for its all-night rave parties and concerts.

“Everybody kept telling us the operator didn’t want to leave but we figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask,” Lyons said. “We met with her, told her what we wanted to do, and about eight months later, we bought the business.”

A 30-year lease gives Lyons and Adelman the option to buy. “The past is not our enemy here,” Lyons said. “A lot of great things happened here. Not too many clubs can say that the Beatles stood on their fire escape looking out at Capitol Records.”

Buoyed by the building’s history, Lyons and Adelman set about trying to create a nightclub experience and concert arena that wouldn’t get lost in L.A.’s already crowded club scene. They named it Avalon after Lyons’ Boston nightclub, which opened in 1988 and has since won many national awards, including Mixer magazine’s “best club ever.”

Across from Capitol Records on Vine Street, Avalon is in the heart of Hollywood’s night scene. The 1,400-capacity venue includes a dance club with a live performance and theatrical stage, a French bistro called Cafe Royale, and the Moroccan-themed VIP Spider Club upstairs where the rich and famous can eat and dance privately.

Concertgoers will be able to watch shows from the dance floor or the balcony area, which will become a funky lounge with plush sofas, ottomans and Tootsie Roll couches that snuggle inside the two bars. Four Moroccan-inspired cabanas for parties of eight will include PlayStation console tables.

Carrie Sanchez, a marketing executive for House of Blues, was there on opening night scoping out the competition. “It used to be kitschy old Hollywood, but it’s kind of sad they’ve modernized it,” she said. “It’s very orange, but at least they’ve kept the scallopings.”

Although Avalon joins other large dance venues including White Lotus, the Highlands and the Mayan, what its owners hope will give it the edge is the space’s ability to morph from a concert hall to a theater to a dance club in the course of a night.

“You can be in this club for four hours and be in a different place every hour,” architect George Kelly said. “What I love about this project is how we’re preserving the building’s historic items, but we’re taking them and bringing them into the 2002 digital world.”

Lyons is known for the innovations he’s made in club sound and lighting. In the ‘70s, before MTV, Lyons’ Boston club, Metro, offered 20-foot projected video montages that were synchronized with the music.

“We used the footage of artists who had performed,” Lyons said. “It was like video wallpaper.”

Avalon’s lighting system, designed by Austin-based High End Systems, is the first commercially available digitally moving light that can project four digital images simultaneously anywhere in the room. With the projection shining on the dance floor, it creates the illusion that you’re standing on water, or in a field of wheat, or anywhere in the world. Lighting guru Mark Brickman, known for his work on concert tours of the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Bruce Springsteen, worked with Lyons on finding and adapting the system.

“You can take any image that you want and put it anywhere you want in the room,” Lyons said. “It allows for a visual layering.”

The club will also use the sound nightclub technology that Lyons, a sound engineer, developed with Eastern Acoustic Works four years ago. Known as the “Avalon Series,” the system is designed from the ground up -- instead of the stage -- and has become the most widely sold sound system for dance clubs in the world.

For the first two weeks, Avalon will operate only as a concert venue, as construction crews put finishing touches on Cafe Royale and Spider Club, which will open Oct. 3 when the main room also opens as a dance club.

After Avalon is fully operational, the legendary Hollywood and Vine intersection will have recaptured its special sensibility, said Hollywood Entertainment District executive director Kerry Morrison.

“That type of entertainment venue reinforces the original vision of bringing back live entertainment to the eastern end of Hollywood Boulevard,” she said.

Spider Club itself is a nod to Hollywood, a 200-capacity lounge on the third story, which can be accessed from an outside staircase and will cater to A-list celebrities and Hollywood’s elite.

Decorated in Moroccan tile and hand-hammered cocoon lights, and furnished with undulated, rolling leather sofas, Spider Club will have its own DJ, dance floor and bar. Musicians, singers, performers and DJ also will have access to “The Townhouse,” a three-story apartment Adelman designed by linking existing dressing rooms and adding the amenities of a home.

“When you open a place anywhere, you have to be aware of your surroundings and have a product that addresses them,” Lyons said. “In L.A., we have a higher ratio of celebrities who want to go out and enjoy themselves. We can’t ignore that. They may be watching the entertainment one day and may be the entertainment another day.”

The entertainment was the last thing on the mind of designer Samantha Crasco, who selected the early ‘60s Spanish/Moroccan motif for the Spider Club, and evaluated her decision opening night.

“It’s raw,” she said. “There’s still so much to do. All I’m seeing now is what is left. I know what furniture is missing but I also now know what I need to correct. Overall, I’m pretty happy with how it’s come together. But I don’t feel relieved yet. Talk to me in three weeks.”

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Avalon

Where: 1735 N. Vine St., Hollywood

When: Now open for concerts only. Dance club opens Oct. 3, then Friday and Saturdays, 10 p.m.-2 a.m.

Cost: Cover charge varies.

Upcoming concerts

Tonight, Spearhead; Friday, Hot Hot Heat; Saturday, David Crowder; Sunday,

Cake/Cheap Trick. Spider Club: Opens Oct. 3, Tuesdays-Saturdays 10 p.m.-2 a.m., no cover. Royale: Opens mid-October.

Info: For general info, (323) 462-8900.

For concert info, (213) 480-3232.