Asian Pacific Palisades: Our community evolved from a Methodist outpost, but Far East flavors have influenced its culture

By MICHAEL AUSHENKER | Contributing Writer

Let’s face it: demographically speaking, Pacific Palisades has never been considered overly ethnic.

According to the 2000 United States Census, the Palisades, among Los Angeles communities, had the third-largest percentage of white residents—a whopping 88.6 percent—and that statistic has probably not budged too dramatically over the past 16 years.

However, not long after Rev. Charles H. Scott founded Pacific Palisades in 1922 on behalf of Southern California Methodist Episcopal Church, Asian culture has periodically intersected with this town and permeated the culture in interesting, offbeat ways.

On June 12, famed Hollywood Hills-perched Japanese restaurant Yamashiro abruptly shut down after the site’s century-plus existence. Beijing hotel operator JE Group bought the long-running hilltop destination with the panoramic citywide view for nearly $40 million from the majority of the Glover family, which had managed the establishment since 1948. Restaurant operators BNG Group and Sugar Factory have assumed management of Yamashiro (due for a grand
reopening following some remodeling).

The Bernheimer brothers, Adolph and Eugene—a pair of Jewish immigrant bachelors and Asian antique dealers—had developed and built the renowned Kyoto temple-motif destination in 1912. Not as successful or enduring was Adolph Bernheimer’s nearly forgotten Palisades project, Bernheimer Oriental Gardens, once existing on 16980 Sunset Blvd. (and long anticipating the Far East grounds of Lake Shrine Self-Realization Center further west on Sunset).

In 1924, Eugene died unexpectedly in his adopted San Francisco. A year later, Adolph trained his energy on Pacific Palisades, where Alphonso E. Bell had sold him an ocean-view property previously home to a mule camp for highway construction. Adolph, who had traveled to the Far East nearly 20 times across 50 years, intended to transform his Palisades land into a personal residence and tourist attraction where “the Orient Meets the Occident,” as a brochure stated.

Bernheimer Oriental Gardens once stood as a compound that included a kitschy gatehouse, single-room Japanese houses painted in black, gold and mauve (a recreation of Nikko temple grounds stables), a rock-adorned lily pool with bronze statues of 6th-century Chinese philosopher Lao-tse riding a horse and 9th-century Japanese religious educator Ten-Jin on an ox; and Sunken Garden with miniature lake and temples, statues of warriors and elephants and a Burmese Buddha wishing well. Adolph’s home—a quartet of small houses connected by pergolas—had interiors adorned by rice paper paintings, bridal and temple kimonos, fingernail tapestries, evil-deflecting devil-dogs and other antique Asian artifacts from his travels.

Bernheimer Gardens thrived as a tourist attraction until 1941, averaging 5,000 visitors weekly. Suddenly, World War II-bred xenophobia—toward Japanese culture and Bernheimer’s German background—contributed to the gardens’ vandalism and demise. After Adolph’s 1944 death, financial
difficulties and land erosion threw the Oriental Gardens into a freefall of decay; its treasures auctioned off by 1951, its structures demolished soon after, an apartment building erected on the land’s west end.

Fast-forward to the mid-20th century and the nigh-legendary House of Lee—an erstwhile Chinese restaurant once looming on 15299 Sunset Blvd.—proved historic as the first establishment in Pacific Palisades proper to serve alcohol (long taboo to the community’s Methodist founders).

By the time House of Lee opened in 1950, owners Ah Wing and Kay Young had become very involved and ingrained in the Palisades’ civic tapestry. Born in 1907, Ah Wing arrived in America in 1922 from Canton after his American-born father had died young. Raised by uncles in Philadelphia, Young entered the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He soon met Kay, a California-bred Chinese-American, in New York and married her.

In 1947, the Youngs started their new chapter together in LA’s Chinatown district. That year, contractor Bob Wilson, an old friend from Kay’s school days, helped Ah Wing obtain land in Pacific Palisades. When House of Lee became the first business on the north side of Sunset Boulevard between Swarthmore and Monument—opening with a bang worthy of a Chinese New Year fireworks display—the town’s conservative Methodist population bristled over Ah Wing’s pursuit of a hard-liquor license.

Nevertheless, a legendary restaurant and watering hole was born. All red vinyl booths and velvet paintings, Young’s restaurant had kitschy Oriental character galore. Depending on who one spoke to, House of Lee’s cuisine was either memorable or memorably dreadful. Yet it was the restaurant’s adjoining bar, the Wing Ding Room, which developed an uncanny allure, providing locals a low-key gathering place to unwind. That included the Palisades’ emerging Hollywood contingent: James Arness and his brother, “Mission: Impossible” star Peter Graves, Richard Widmark and Anthony Quinn. You could have called Young’s joint the “House of Lee Marvin” given the amount of time the “Point Blank” star had reportedly spent there. Patrick McGoohan (“The Prisoner”), former Palisades Honorary Mayor Anthony Hopkins (“Silence of the Lambs”), Richard Boone, Richard Harris, James Whitmore, Peter O’Toole and Steve McQueen also supposedly passed through the Wing Ding Room’s infamous strung-beads portal (demarking a forbidden-zone flipside to the family-friendly restaurant half).

In 1957, the Youngs moved into their 857 Castaic Place residence, raising their daughter. A year later, Ah Wing Young—very involved with the Chamber of Commerce and American Legion 283—won Citizen of the Year honors for his efforts to establish the Legion building on La Cruz Drive. He donated his $100 prize to Palisades Youth House.

In 1973, Young sold House of Lee to cousin Jimmy Fong. Young died in 1994. Six years later, an ill Fong, who had run House of Lee for 26 years, announced he was selling it. On April 21, 2000, Fong succumbed to cancer and House of Lee served its last Mai Tai that June 1, after which a group of investors—including lifelong Palisadian Tommy Stoilkovich—purchased the establishment. After a brief flirtation with the name Little Buddha, they re-opened the restaurant as the pan-Asian Pearl Dragon, and, acknowledging this address’s past, they retained House of Lee’s most famous menu item: the Wing Ding Burger.

Today, Asian-American businesses endure among the most successful and long-running in the Village, including Rosie Nails, Sasabune-owned Sushi Don and Cathay Restaurant, which has quietly operated nearly three decades next door to trendier Café Vida and longer than any existing Village restaurant. Despite a single-digit demographic percentile, Asian-American Palisadians contribute to this community’s vibrancy, among them talented individuals not alien to the Palisadian-Post’s pages: Shannon Lee, daughter of martial arts icon Bruce Lee; Hollywood Reporter and Billboard Editor-in-Chief Janice Min; and Tiffany Hu, movie soundtrack violin virtuoso, real estate agent and proud mom of Mr. Palisades, a.k.a. Evan Epstein.

There are also prominent residents of partial Asian descent, including A-list superstar actor/producer Tom Hanks (quarter Chinese) and iconic comic Tommy Chong (half Chinese) of Cheech & Chong fame. Born in Kobe, Karl Taro Greenfeld grew up here to a Japanese mother and Jewish-American father. Greenfeld ultimately moved back to Japan to work as Tokyo Journal’s managing editor. (His father, Josh Greenfeld, 88, is the Palisades-based Oscar-nominated co-screenwriter of 1974 Academy Award-winning movie “Harry and Tonto.”)