"Las Tunas Isle Motel"
by Pablo Capra
Part of a series on overlooked Malibu history
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| Las Tunas Isle Motel, postcard, 1950s. Photo c/o Barry O. Balin Historical Archives. |
A lit cigarette, left on the couch, set ablaze the Las Tunas Beach house of actress Natalie Talmadge (1896-1969) on September 25, 1943, at 2:30 a.m. Fire Captain Tom Cheney concluded this because the couch burned through the floor.
Natalie’s surfer son, James Talmadge
(1922-2007), had taken over the house with his teenage wife, Barbara Tichenor
(1925-2023), a local tennis star. Barbara would later become the first female
Fire Commissioner in California, in Lake Tahoe; but, that night, the newlyweds’
negligence destroyed the second story, and ended the family’s residence there.
In 1945, Tom Bennett (b.1903) and his
wife Margaret (b.1916) created the Las Tunas Isle Motel with a tropical theme
that included faux animal skins, tiki masks, and walls covered with arundo from
local creeks. The motel’s 18 rooms (later reduced to 14) had names like Jungle
and Leopard, but the mirrors on the ceiling signaled that the fun was meant for
adults.
Information about the motel’s owners
is scarce. In 1946, the Bennetts sold to Hugh Zimmerman (1890-1954) and his
wife Hazel (1892-1969), who previously owned hotels in Pasadena, Ontario (Hotel
Ontario), Santa Barbara, and Gallup, NM (El Rancho Hotel). In 1948, the
Zimmermans sold to D. H. Huntington and James O. Thompson of Denver. In the
early 1950s, the motel was run by J. Bennett (related to the creators?). In the
late 1950s, it was run by Evan Mattison (1904-1958), a banker. Bert Kerley and
his wife owned it in the 1960s.
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| Princess Radziwill in her tiki-themed room, 1952-11-14. Photo c/o University of Southern California. |
Notable guests included Lois Evans (1928-1977), a University High School graduate who went to France for fashion design and married a Polish prince, Wladyslaw Jerzy Boguslav Radziwill (1881-1963). Their marriage lasted from 1950-51, but she spent most of that time away skiing. Of their 47-year age gap, she said,
"It’s true that he was much older than I was. But he is a striking man, so polished and suave; so considerate, too. He is one of the most famous big game hunters in the world and he shot 24 elephants. He fascinated and intrigued me. He was a hero."
—”Sick of Princess’ Life, Lois
Awaits Divorce,” New York Daily News, 1951-11-26
In 1952, she returned to Los Angeles and took a room at the motel, where she was secretly robbed of $20,770 during a party she gave on November 13. Missing were her $7,000 seven-carat diamond ring, $3,500 gold ring with five diamonds, $2,700 diamond solitaire ring, $1,000 diamond bracelet-watch, and $2,500 string of pearls with a sapphire-and-diamond clasp.
Three of her friends were arrested,
two of whom had criminal records. One had an outstanding warrant. Another is
believed to have made the anonymous phone call that led police to a downtown LA
locker containing the less-valuable jewels. Finally, a male model confessed,
Leonard Bleecher (b.1931), saying that he had thrown part of the jewelry off
the Santa Monica Pier during an argument with his getaway driver over how to
divide things up. Sent to prison for two years, he was arrested again in 1956
for robbing actors Ginger Rogers and Kirk Douglas. The princess’s bad company
hinted at the kind of life she was living, and in 1955 she went to prison
herself for heroin possession.
Another motel guest, Ollie Browning,
was the owner of LA’s biggest African American liquor store, the Liquor Spot,
at 3004 Crenshaw Blvd. The “sexy size 12” of this “popular civic figure” was a
frequent topic in the California Eagle, like when she
wore “a snug fitting gold-and-white sports outfit with shoes to match.” She was
also a princess, of sorts, with a diamond ring worth $5,000, and a white Jaguar
car. In 1958, the newspaper published her praise of the “wonderful Las Tunas
Isle Motel,” which she said had “everything to make your visit a pleasant one.”
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| Sculptor Claes Oldenburg created Bedroom Ensemble (1963), a life-size recreation of a motel room. |
Artists Claes Oldenburg (1929-2022) and his wife Patricia Muschinski (b.1935) visited the motel in 1963.
“'I came to LA… because it was the most opposite thing to New York I could think of…. This isn’t to suggest I looked down my nose at the artists here—they looked down their noses at me because I couldn’t surf and didn’t have a motorcycle,'” he jokes, in an obvious reference to the artists associated with LA’s legendary Ferus Gallery.…
—”When Bigger Is Better,” Los Angeles Times, 1995-07-02
The motel’s kitschy decor, so opposite from high art, resonated with Oldenburg, who let everyday objects inspire his Pop sculptures. His Bedroom Ensemble (1963) is a life-size recreation of one of the rooms. “I was struck by the humour of them. They had a pseudo-functionalist look—like they were made to be enjoyed or to be seen rather than used,” he said. “Bedroom Ensemble… signaled the beginning of a new direction in my work.”
In 1964, the motel hosted six-year-old
Fiona MacFarlane and her family from Scotland, the winners of a 10-day trip to
California. Fiona had entered a national contest to promote dental hygiene by returning
a form that came with her toothpaste. Walt Disney invited the family to stay at
Disneyland for the second part of their trip, where Fiona was tasked with delivering
“The Happy Smile” campaign’s message on a scroll to Happy the Dwarf.
The motel was condemned for not
meeting fire code in 1974. Actor Paul Sand (b.1932), who had the biggest room
on the top floor, paid for an outdoor staircase that allowed him to stay. When
the motel was converted into an eight-unit apartment building in 1975, several
friends moved in, including actors Melinda Dillon (1939-2023), Maria Schneider
(1952-2011), and Viola Spolin (1906-1994). One day, everyone went to see Jaws (1975), but Paul didn’t feel like it. Afterwards, no
one would join him for a swim, he remembers, or even step onto the beach.
Armand Riza (1928-2022), a real estate agent, bought the building in 1976 and lived in one of the apartments. He turned it back into a private home around 1980. A Malibu Times article (“Married to the Sea,” 2001-09-06) celebrated his surfer lifestyle of getting in the ocean every day, paddling a kayak when he got older. Since his death last year, the historic house at 18904 Pacific Coast Highway has been for sale.
