At Last, a Ray of Sunshine for the Parasol

The Parasol restaurant, a Seal Beach landmark famous for its kitschy architecture and homemade cooking, has gotten a temporary reprieve from planned demolition.

Century National Properties, which owns the Seal Beach Boulevard shopping center where the Parasol is located, announced this week that it will revise its plans to remodel the mall.

Those plans, unveiled in April, had called for razing the umbrella-shaped restaurant and eight other structures to make way for new stores.

But senior management at Century National has changed since, company officials said, and the new managers decided to change the redevelopment project.

In the meantime, the Parasol and other businesses will be allowed to stay in their present buildings at least until March 31, company officials said. After that, their leases will be reviewed on a month-to-month basis.

“It allows us time to fully review where the center should be going, and what the center will become,” Lyman Lokken, senior vice president of Century National, said in a written statement.

Company officials did not commit to saving the Parasol permanently, saying that they would continue to work with the restaurant owners.

“We are happy that they are sitting down and working with us,” said Roy Hall, who has owned the Parasol with wife Carol for 25 years. But “there is still a lot of work ahead, and we will have to wait and see.”

Built in 1967, the Parasol -- with its white dome roof and pink spines -- is a hybrid of architectural styles that flourished in postwar Southern California. The restaurant is also an important gathering place, patrons say. Generations have dined and worked at the restaurant.

News that the restaurant might be demolished spurred thousands of residents to sign a petition calling for its protection. The city hired a consultant to determine the building’s historic value.

Nancy Luebben, a patron who helped start the campaign to save the Parasol, said she and others would press on.

“Our primary concern is to preserve the architectural and historic merit of the building and its cultural value,” said Luebben, of Los Alamitos. “It is so important to our community.”