City
Looks For Easy Beach Day |
By Anita Varghese
Staff Writer
November 5 -- An army of Community and Cultural Services
Department staffers were in full force Saturday to help Santa Monicans
envision the City’s new public beach club and field some of
their concerns.
While there are high hopes for the beach club at the former Marion Davies Estate
at 415 Pacific Coast Highway, workshop attendees worried that the club’s
success could snarl traffic, overflow the nearby parking lot and result in user
fees for the meeting and special event rooms that would be unaffordable.
City officials vowed that the Annenberg Community Beach Club -- which is currently
being constructed thanks to a $27.5 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation
-- will be a high quality facility for the public when it opens in 2009
“We are going to maintain the facility at a very high level,” said
Callie Hurd, the City’s new open space manager, whose division will be
in charge of the beach club for the City. “Our goal here is to replicate
a beach club experience. To that extent, we want a facility that really looks
like a private beach club.”
The renovated site will feature rooms for meetings and special events, a restored
historic swimming pool, a new pool house, picnic areas, gardens, an improved
beach café, a concessions stand, volleyball courts and beach tennis courts.
“One of the things that is really important to remember about this site
– and this actually makes it a little more complicated to figure out how
to operate – is the fact that the site is a public site,” said Hurd,
who managed beaches and parks in her previous job with California State Parks.
“We have to develop something that can accommodate the whole diversity
of our society. We also have to keep in mind that it is an environmentally sensitive
site,” she said, noting that snowy plovers, an endangered or threatened
bird species, reside near the site.
City staffers hosted Saturday’s workshop to gather public input on preferred
beach club programs. Attendees were asked to envision “an easy day at
the beach.”
“What we found when we opened facilities and planned everything ourselves
– especially facilities in neighborhoods and facilities that have different
kinds of stakeholders – is that there are people whose expectations are
met and people whose expectations are not met,” said Barbara Stinchfield,
director of Community and Cultural Services.
She cited the Airport Park dog park issue of excluding adjacent Los Angeles
residents as a learning experience for the City to obtain comprehensive public
input before opening parks or recreation facilities.
Developed in the 1920s by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst for his
mistress, silent film star Marion Davies, the 5.5-acre ocean front property
at 415 Pacific Coast Highway originally had a mansion, swimming pool, tennis
courts and a guesthouse.
After serving as a private hotel and private beach club, the City received
ownership of the site and operated a seasonal public beach facility.
Nearly all of the site’s buildings were red-tagged following the 1994
Northridge earthquake.
The estate’s North House, a restored landmark, will serve as the beach
club visitor’s center and be home to year-round cultural programming.
Rooms have been redesigned to hold cultural events and small gatherings, with
a garden added to the west end of the house as well as a handicapped accessible
elevator and public restrooms.
The Event House is a newly built one-story structure for meetings, retreats,
social events and community programs.
Ocean views are present in three rooms that can be rented separately or together.
The largest room is 1,978 square feet and can hold approximately 125 people
if tables are set up in banquet style.
Adjacent to the Event House are gardens, public art and a water feature.
The pool, pool house and picnic area have been dedicated as the heart of the
beach club.
Featured in this section is a restored pool with added accessibility, pool
deck for lounging, enclosed picnic area with water play for young children,
two-story pool house with lockers and showers, ocean view deck and second-story
recreation room for programs and special events.
An upgraded beach café will have a new take-out window service.
A new concessions stand is built to house any variety of beach and sports equipment
rentals such as umbrellas, beach chairs and boogie boards.
The recreation area on the sand has space for volleyball, tennis, a beach walk
and extended boardwalk.
In an effort to protect wildlife and please neighbors, the beach club will
close at dusk except for private booked events.
The site will be staffed by City employees at all times year-round with security
coverage at night.
Outdoor amplified music is allowed only for daytime, City-sponsored events.
Beer and wine are allowed only for permitted events accompanied by staffed,
licensed bar service.
Community programs and recreation events have priority during the peak summer
season, with more private events and social functions allowed off-season.
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