‘The Canyon is our western Greenwich Village, overrun now by various types of outsiders, but still maintains an atmosphere of Bohemianism and unpretentious artiness.’ – Christopher Isherwood
”The Shore,” Harper’s Bazaar, 1952 As the sun sinks into the Pacific Ocean, Randy Young and Doug Suisman kick back at a table on the patio of the Golden Bull on West Channel Road. It’s not by accident. Sipping on margaritas and mai-tai’s, the men hit the popular steakhouse-and-cocktails destination to indulge in the laid-back, Santa Monica Canyon lifestyle at what is arguably the beach community’s most storied restaurant. The Bull, after all, is where Steve McQueen once occupied an indoor corner booth (‘Because he could be invisible,’ Young says), where Palisadian Lee Marvin came in for a drink (‘A charming man”unless you were in a fistfight with him,’ Young says), where venerable actors such as Peter Graves and Peter Fonda have dined for decades, and where New Hollywood-types, such as the Wilson Brothers”Owen, Luke and Andrew”spend their down time in between movie shoots. Welcome to Santa Monica Canyon, a funky interstice of Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica, bifurcated by two parallel, restaurant-lined main drags”West Channel Road and Entrada Drive”and bordered by Pacific Coast Highway. Less than one square mile in diameter with a clear view of the Pacific, this overlap between chic ‘n single Santa Monica and the family-friendly Palisades has managed to carve an identity all its own into the canyon. Today, lifelong Palisadian Young, 57, and Suisman, 54, an urban planner and Canyon resident, discuss plans to adorn exterior wall space at Canyon School (where Suisman’s kids attend) with banners reproducing archival photographs, taken in the area a century ago. Young, a local historian and co-author of ‘Santa Monica Canyon: A Walk Through History,’ has arrived with stacks of boxes brimming with old postcards and photographs of such landmarks as the Bull, Ted’s Grill, and the old Bundy Bath House. During the late 19th”/early 20th”century period, when the area was nicknamed Rancho Boca de Santa Monica (‘The Mouth of Santa Monica Canyon’), Spanish and Russian populations, a village at the Long Wharf at Potrero Canyon was home to 300 Japanese fishermen and their families, and a portion of L.A.’s Jewish community used to descend on the neighborhood right before Rosh HaShanah, to perform their pre-Jewish New Year tashlich ritual (a symbolic casting away of sins by throwing bread into the sea). At 212 Entrada, William Randolph Hearst erected an English-style structure, as part of the estate built on the beach in Santa Monica, for his mistress, Marion Davies. Created by Julie Morgan, the same architect who designed Hearst’s Castle at San Simeon, the 16-room guest house was eventually sold in 1945, reopened as a hotel, and renovated in 1993 by a screenwriter as a house dubbed ‘Rosebud’ (referencing the cinematic Hearst allegory ‘Citizen Kane’). ‘The Canyon is a very odd juxtaposition, a mix of restaurants, tacky ’60s apartments and Craftsmen homes,’ Young says. ‘Not the classic beach town.’ Back in the mid-20th century, ‘it was total anarchy, not [self-conscious] like Laguna Beach.’ Young describes the neighborhood’s hey day, not entirely tongue-in-cheek, as ‘a den of inequity. It had a naughty aspect,’ perhaps rebelling against the strict moral codes of the Methodist community that had populated the Palisades by the 1920s. Young notes that Santa Monica Canyon upholds a tradition of intellectuals, movie industry people, a European contingent (including German exiles), and a prominent gay culture that goes back to novelist Chris Isherwood. The Bull still enjoys a young, affluent gay clientele (among other demographics), as did one of the previous incarnations of neighboring bar The Hideout. ‘When [artist David] Hockney came to L.A., this was the first place he stayed at,’ Young says. ‘It was always very laid back in the 1960s and ’70s,’ says Don Cranford, owner of the Golden Bull. ‘In the old days you can walk down the street and walk into 10 parties.’ ‘It’s always been a mixed neighborhood, never exclusive,’ adds Suisman, a former New Yorker who moved to the Canyon in 1997 and chalks up his residency here to ‘undeserved luck.’ ‘I bought the house here as a bachelor, and when I moved here, I was the youngest,’ says Suisman, now a father of two. ‘There were no kids in the Canyon. Now there are more and more families.’ But the Canyon’s eclectic nature remains intact. ‘The thing I love most is the community,’ Suisman says. ‘The long history of creative people. The topography is non-conforming, and so are the residents here: painters, musicians, novelists, a lot of screenwriters.’ ‘Whereas the Palisades has more actors,’ Young says. The Canyon’s commercial center, surrounded by a hilly residential area with ocean views, is not without its problems. Pan-handling transients tend to gravitate to the busy intersection of W. Channel and Entrada at PCH, and the tunnels, intermittently flooded with water and/or the homeless, have seen better days. ‘We care about the tunnels,’ says Suisman, who cared enough to lead the charge with the Boca Neighborhood Association in the 1990s. ‘We got Cal Trans to pump water out of the flooded tunnel. ‘The beauty of the Canyon is that it’s walkable,’ he continues, describing some of its back channels and short cuts. ‘You have to sort of learn it.’ Young takes the Palisadian-Post on a walking tour of the neighborhood, beginning with West Channel. ‘The street used to be a channel (hence the street’s name), but it got clogged up and buried in six feet of mud,’ Young says. The original Ted’s Grill, owned and operated by Ted and Mabel Pemberton, was built by real estate developer Frank E. Bundy (as in Bundy Drive) in 1914. It originally stood at 170 W. Channel, the Golden Bull’s present-day address. In the 1920s, it moved to 146 Entrada, and a section of the now-defunct restaurant, dormant but still standing, remains the Canyon’s oldest structure ‘It’s always been a focal point of this community,’ says Young, who characterizes the Canyon’s business community as ‘very independent with no chamber of commerce.’ On Channel, there’s the upscale Italian restaurant Georgio’s, its fa’ade obscured by shrubs. The most famous and politically connected establishment, it’s known to be a favorite of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the 1920s, what is now known as the Canyon Lounge Hideout was Doc Law’s drug store malt shop. Moreover, during the Prohibition, it housed a speakeasy that became Will Rogers’ watering hole. ‘They had picnic benches out back and they drank out of tea cups,’ says Young, who shares a salacious story of how once Santa Monica’s chief of police and librarian were seen running out the back during a police raid. In the early 1950s, the bar began to go through a series of incarnations, including the gay-friendly The Friendship Cafe, before reinventing itself in 2007 as the Hideout, which today services a young college crowd with a thirst for such cocktails as the Hot ‘n’ Dirty, the V.C.R. and the Bikini Tini. Young greets Sam Elias, the ‘Sam’ in Sam’s Restaurant, standing at the entrance of his establishment, which is about to open for dinner. Elias was one of several partners when the establishment opened 12 years ago as a Mediterranean French restaurant. He took over the restaurant himself and ‘I converted it to my idea in 2000 to a French bistro.’ ‘You can’t ask for a better neighborhood,’ Elias tells the Post. ‘It’s the ideal place to live in all of Southern California,’ although his one quibble is the difficulty to park in the area. He suggests that the city create a parking structure to accommodate visitors, as the restaurant traffic easily piles up on weekends. However, the California Coastal Act of 1972 limits development on parking, as well as building up the area with hotels, condos, and skyscraper structures, so Elias’ point is probably moot. At the corner of W. Channel and PCH is a shuttered establishment that Young says had evolved ‘from a four-star restaurant to an A & W Root Beer in the 1960s, to the fancy French restaurant Cent’ni in the late 1970s, The Beach in the late 1980s/early ’90s and, most recently, the Brass Cap, before culminating with a dramatic conclusion worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster. ‘A car drove into it off of PCH, right into the building, and the restaurant went under in 2003,’ Young says. As Young discusses the former restaurant, a pair of policemen haul away a transient loitering in front of it. The abandoned cardboard sign on the ground reads: ‘I miss my mom. Any kinda money will help.’ ‘The Canyon has a little bit of a big city that people should be exposed to,’ Young says with a devilish grin, relishing the grit that sometimes dusts the community like sand blown in from the beach. On the opposite corner, behind the florist at the corner of PCH at 101 Chautauqua, stands a building with an aquarium mural along its roofline. The edifice’s lower part used to be the Bundy Bath House, built by Bundy and managed by A. F. Young, from 1915 and through the late 1920s. It housed an open market in the late 1980s. Today, the building accomodates InTheCanyon.com and Canyon Service and Detail. At the corner of Entrada stands State Beach Liquor and Deli. ‘Ron Waller, the pro-football player who played for the Rams, opened it in the late 1950s,’ Young says. A dormant Ted’s Grill still stands at 146 Entrada. In the ’70s and ’80s, Rustic Canyon resident Bob Morris had taken over the address and opened Gladstone’s 4 Fish. ‘Gladstone’s was more tourist-y, and Ted’s was where all the neighborhood people went,’ Young says. ‘I remember when I was a kid, you could buy chicken for $1. There was a bar on the side, a deep dark bar, it was like a pit.’ Young dispels a myth that Entrada favorite Patrick’s Roadhouse, opposite State Beach Liquor, used to be a railroad station. The restaurant was built afterwards. Strolling up Entrada, Young points out Canyon Beachwear, ‘the first bikini in America was here.’ In the 1940s, painter Joe Lathwood, credited with designing the bikini, created them from her W. Channel apartment in the 1940s and sold them to area stores. As popular as Patrick’s is its neighbor, Marix Tex Mex. But the restaurant, which today caters to a UCLA college crowd, wasn’t always so hip, as its Pegoda-shaped exterior hints. In the early 1980s, the building opened as a traditional Japanese restaurant. ‘But it didn’t go over well,’ Young says. ‘It folded after two years.’ The best food for demanding epicureans, in Young’s opinion, can be found at Caffe Delfini, across Channel from the Bull. Once a branch of the Big Yellow House, Delifni is now a cozy upscale Italian bistro, where area celebrities go to enjoy the intimate atmosphere, the rigatoni gorgonzola and the fettuccine Bolognese, and a glass of Graham’s Tawny port. On a weekday, one can often find one of Delfini’s valets, a Peruvian fellow, leaning against a nearby parking-lot wall and serenading the setting sun with his bright orange accordion (on his breaks, as he does not perform inside the restaurant for diners). There’s something about the accordion’s lazy notes, intermingling with the setting’s sun’s long purple shadows, the perfectly sells the Canyon’s laid-back romanticism. The Golden Bull is a true survivor, having suffered damage during the great flood of 1938 and the 1994 Northridge Quake. Owner Cranford has worked at the restaurant for 42 years. For almost half of that time, he has worked as a bartender and manager. By the mid-1980s, Cranford reached a fork in his career. ‘When it came up for sale, I either had to look for a new job or buy the place,’ he says. So Cranford bought the restaurant from a partner of Glen Billingsley (who started Billingsley’s British-flavored restaurant, currently on Pico Boulevard in West L.A., and whose brother, Sherman Billingsley, opened the Stork Club in New York). ‘The Golden Bull started as a [California] chain in 1948,’ Cranford says. ‘It was a red-brick building, first it was a real estate office, then Ted’s Grill.’ And it was originally called Billingsley’s Golden Bull. But by the late 1960s, the 10 or so Billingsley’s Golden Bulls had died out, and Cranford’s Bull remains the only one still in business. The leathery, booth-filled Bull packs an old school, Rat Pack flavor, but Cranford chalks up the success of his establishment to its great prices, the menu, and the location. ‘If you have to live somewhere, it’s a great place to live,’ says Cranford, who has lived in the Canyon for years and commutes to work by foot. In 1994, the Northridge Quake devastated Santa Monica Canyon, indiscriminately taking down parts of certain establishments, including the Bull, while leaving other places intact. It took 20 months to rebuild and reopen. ‘We tore half the building down, it was originally all brick and it completely collapsed,’ Cranford says. ‘We lost the whole dining room. We were red tagged. It was very stressful. We didn’t know whether we were going to open or not. ‘But the people here were great. They came by every day to see when we were going to reopen. I had people sending me checks in advance for their first meal.’ Of course, the Bull did re-open…only to close again for a week ‘because the main shoreline collapsed and then we reopened again,’ Cranford says. ‘A lot of our old customers came back. The people in this neighborhood are just nice.’ Those people often include celebrities. ‘Chris Isherwood used to come in here, David Hockney,’ Cranford says. ‘That’s what this place was about in the ’50s and ’60s. Everyone was either a writer, an artist, was unemployed or had money. ‘We’ve got a lot of new actors come in, but we mostly get the old timers.’ In years past, Bea Arthur, Anne Baxter and Natalie Schafer (Mrs. Howell on ‘Gilligan’s Island’) were among the regulars. ‘We want to keep it low key,’ says Cranford, who admits he’s bad at recognizing celebrities. ‘I’ve only got two autographs all my life: Mae West and Betty White.’ The Bull was not the only location hit hard by the Northridge Quaek. The apartment building next door had to be rebuilt from its foundation. The Friendship, owned at the time by Cranford, closed down for two years. On Entrada, Canyon Athletics was hit hard. ‘Canyon Athletics used to be brick front,’ Young says. ‘It’s been rebuilt since the Northridge Quake.’ According to Young, in the early 20th century, it used to be the Golden Butterfly, ‘a dance hall and whorehouse. Edmund Goulding [director of ‘Grand Hotel’ and ‘The Razor’s Edge’] would have these orgy parties and they’d go there afterwards to continue the fun.’ Several incarnations later”which included a hippie restaurant called the New Hope Inn and a tool emporium”the storefront is peddling flesh once again, but in a legal, innocuous fashion as the area’s gym. Back at the Bull, Young and Suisman list the Canyon’s most popular culinary destinations: Patrick’s, Marix, Georgio’s, Delfini, Sam’s, and, of course, their current hangout. ‘It really has become a destination for really good restaurants,’ Young says. He later points across the street to a house on the hill, above where Short Street ends and just west of the Channel Road Inn: ‘That’s where Mae West used to live.’ It’s only fitting, notes Young, that the sassy, brassy film comedienne lived in this part of town: chickadees of a feather. ‘The Canyon is chi-chi and elegant and classy and tacky,’ Young says. ‘It’s still kind of avant garde, but it’s a younger crowd than the Palisades.’ ‘The Bull is the one place that’s the true neighborhood hangout,’ says Suisman, who will sometimes amble by and find Young entertaining friends on the patio. As if on cue, another friend arrives, joining Young and Suisman, and Young and the visitor decide to order dinner. Suisman admits that when he first moved to the neighborhood as a single man, he felt a tad lost. ‘Now you’ll have to pry me out with a large hammer,’ he says. ‘We leave our canyons in a box!’ says Young, laughing, as he clinks glasses with Suisman. CAPTION: The Golden Bullfrog? Not quite! The Toed Inn Barbecue, circa 1938, was a local example of California’s wacky restaurant trend, which popularity peaked by mid-century. CAPTION: The Canyon was no stranger to disasters. The fire of May 1916, started by careless fishermen, destroyed two hotels, a store and several residences. The Flood of 1938 (above) when everything changed so severely it closed the chapter on the frontier mood. Took out trees, straightened the roads. More recently, the Canyon was hit hard by the 1994 Northridge Quake. CAPTION: —The bath house which once stood at the corner of Chautauqua and PCH. CAPTION: Inside Doc Law’s drug store and malt shop, which, during the Prohibition era, fronted a speakeasy out back. CAPTION: Mabel and Ted Pemberton, owner of Ted’s Grill (inset). CAPTION: Patrick’s Roadhouse, circa 1980.
