They Paved Paradise And Put Up A Parking Lot

I'm not going to lie; I've been composing this post in my head since the day I took these pictures. But it couldn't be just any post. It had to be important. I wanted to be able to say everything I wanted to say without going overboard. Some of these things you've heard me say before (if you've read my posts), but this time, the circumstances were totally different.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Los Angeles, living it up in the sun and the smog and the gridlock. I spent a lot of time traversing the city on the surface streets, visiting friends and sightseeing. I had a stack of index cards with me, notes I had taken on Hollywood landmarks years before. I had addresses (with their Thomas Guide coordinates) and all the bullet-pointed notes. This is how I spent my days. I spent the weekend staying at The Biltmore, hoping to sponge up some of the lavish Hollywood history. I mentioned in my previous post that they wouldn't really let me photograph the interior of the hotel. They made me show my room key a couple of times and it was clear people were keeping their eyes on me. I think being in Los Angeles has made them super sensitive and I'm guessing they were scrutinizing my actions because I had a "fancy" camera and not a point-and-shoot. I left The Biltmore really disappointed with my stay. That was on Sunday. Monday was a whole different story.

On Monday, The Annenberg Community Beach House opened in Santa Monica. It's a place for the public to go to swim, play volleyball, and hang out, without needing any sort of pricey membership. More importantly (to me anyway), the Beach House stands in the footprint of what used to be Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst's Santa Monica mansion. This is the view of the original structure, from the beach:


All that remains of the original design are the guest house and the swimming pool, both of which are now open to the public. I couldn't believe my luck - the space opened the weekend I was there which meant I got to go visit. I can not explain to you the exhilarating feeling of being able to walk around this space. The city of Santa Monica has done an AMAZING job of honoring the land's past. They restored the guest house and a docent will take you on a tour of the inside of this 9100 square foot guest house. Another docent will take you on a tour of the whole space and talk with you about the history of the land and what happened when Marion Davies had to sell the mansion. Here is what the space looks like now:

This is the guest house.


This is the beach house. It stands where the mansion once stood. The pillars integrated into the design of the beach house are in the exact same places as the pillars of the original beach house. The pool in this photo is the original pool; much of the design is the same as at Hearst's pool at San Simeon. So, when you take your little kids to the community pool in Santa Monica, they are swimming where Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, Joan Crawford, and Louis B. Mayer once swam!

As our tour was finishing up, we were standing on the top floor of the beach house, looking out at the water. The docent was talking about the changes in the beach and the ocean and as were watching the waves, we saw a dolphin. It was the perfect way to end our tour.

I just loved these sand castles; they were built right on the beach in front of the Marion Davies guest house.


There was only one other person on my tour, Louise. She lives in Santa Monica and took the tour because she was curious about what was happening in her neighborhood. Turns out, she's a movie lover, too. After our official tour ended, we decided to walk together and tour the "Gold Coast" of the PCH. Back in the day, all the big stars had houses right along the PCH. Most of them have been renovated, added onto, split in half, etc, but the addresses are all still there. It's not exactly the safest thing to do, but we walked along the PCH, checking out the addresses and standing for a moment in the footprints of Harold Lloyd, Mae West, Norma Shearer, and many more. Of course, the diamond in the crown is the home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Louise and I were standing in the driveway, looking up at what was essentially the garage, just marveling at it all. And then the unimaginable happened - we were invited in! I have now stood in Douglas Fairbanks' home. To me, it's an amazing thing. After having such a miserable time trying to explore The Biltmore, to spend the day at Marion Davies' house and then at Douglas Fairbanks' was mind-blowing. It really proved to me that there are people out there, even in Los Angeles, who want to remember, and honor, their past. It was a day I will never forget!

Rudolph Valentino Looks Very Much Alive

When I lived in Los Angeles, I started a personal photography project documenting historical sites throughout the city. Having grown up in the Boston area, I took it for granted that history would be honored and preserved. I was shocked at how callous Los Angelenos seemed to be in regards to their own history and legacy. Many of Hollywood's landmarks were razed to make room for shopping centers and parking lots. So, I went around photographing said shopping centers and parking lots. Some buildings still existed but were being used for different purposes, like most of the old movie palaces on Broadway in downtown L.A. One of the biggest tragedies to me was that they bulldozed the Ambassador Hotel and the Cocoanut Grove. It was closed off when I lived here, used only for filming. The Los Angeles Unified School District owned the property and instead of preserving the building, decided it was cheaper to knock it down and build a new structure. But can you imagine how inspiring it would have been to learn literature in a place where Hemingway and Fitzgerald stayed? Or to learn government in the same place Nixon wrote his famous "Checkers" speech? I was lucky enough to get inside the building before it was destroyed and I was in awe of the structure. It was clearly neglected, but you could just feel its past whooshing by you. It was easy to imagine the glamour of its bygone days. So often with these structures, I think if they could have held off a little longer, they would have made so much money for the city. Who wouldn't want to eat at The Brown Derby? The one shaped like an actual hat? Many of these wonderful landmarks survived well into the 80s and 90s before someone decided they had no more use to them. The same can be said about some of the wonderful and unique architecture of the stars' homes. And I'm not talking about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie; I'm talking about Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn. The above photo is of Rudolph Valentino's house, Falcon Lair. From my research, I think the front gates are one of the only original things left. Since I don't actually have access to the house, this was the only view I had, so I have no idea what's on the inside. It only makes me sad that instead of updating and modernizing, people knock down and rebuild. When will they realize the value of what they have?



The above photo is what Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks' house has become. Pia Zadora and her husband bought it and although they announced plans to renovate the historical building, they ended up demolishing it and constructed this in its place.

Let My Love Open the Door

Come And Knock On My Door

I love old houses. Doug and I enjoy living in places that are achitecturally interesting. With that comes, of course, no dishwasher, old heaters, and other such nonsense. However, we have some very cool features, like a giant glass-block window that has been instrumental in many photoshoots. We also have this supercool slit in the tile above our bathroom sink and below the mirror that is labeled "Used Razor Blades." It is literally a depository for old razor blades. Razors are just hanging out in piles in our bathroom wall. I'd love to get in there to see what else we can discover, like in "If These Walls Could Talk" on HGTV. You better believe that before I leave here, I will be writing a note and folding it up and slipping it in there. Okay, this post has gone in a direction I wasn't really expecting, so now I have to go photograph the bathroom.

So, this is our link to a time when men actually used razor blades to shave...


Okay, but back to the reason I started this post to begin with. Doorknobs. Here are a couple I've encountered recently:


I just love the way they look. The first still has a key that works and the other looks art deco to me. Sometimes there is unexpected beauty in the most mundane objects; as a photographer, it's my job to find that beauty and show everyone else. So, keep your eyes open for cool doorknobs and details.

And, for good measure, here's another photo of that cool phone.

I Was A Starling, Nobody's Darling

Okay, so today I went to the Prudential Center to catch a free Mandy Moore concert. Boston definitely knows how to throw a free concert, and this one was no different. The best part was that it was during lunchtime so it wasn't even that busy. Here's a photo of my friend Krista and I, chilling out on the lawn before the show started. Don't you think I look rather movie-star-ish? And of course, this is Mandy Moore. Despite being skilled with my digital SLR, I am at a loss when it comes to my digital point-and-shoot. This is the best photo I was able to get. We were pretty close to the stage, although since Krista and I are both teeny-tiny short people, there were still heads in our way.



While we were in the city, I grabbed a photo of the Prudential Center itself. The sky looks so blue. Then when I loaded the images onto my camera, I realized I had taken a similar photo a few weeks ago from a different point in the city. The one from today I shot from the lawn of the building. The other one, much closer up, was taken from the top floor of a parking garage. I love taking architectural photos, but I haven't gone on an expedition in the city in a while. Okay, now I'm done posting blogs for today. Phew. That was exhausting.