Photo Essay: A Pink Stucco Palace Overlooking the Pacific

I'd never noticed "The Pink Lady" before, with her Spanish-inspired architecture by Pasadena-based architect Reginald D. Johnson. Then again, whenever I'd been in La Jolla, it was usually down by the Cove.



La Valencia Hotel was opened opened by La Jollans MacArthur Gorton and Roy B. Wiltsie just before Christmas in 1926 as an apartment hotel,  "Los Apartmentos de Sevilla."



The San Diego-La Jolla Railway line used to run right in front of it—but back then, La Jolla wasn't much more than a suburb of San Diego. Tourists didn't stop there. They headed all the way down to the Hotel Del Coronado.



Two years later, an eight-story second unit—designed by Herbert Mann and Tom Shepherd—added hotel-style rooms. And with the addition of the tower that same year, the hotel's name changed to La Valencia. The Great Depression that followed ended up being too much for La Valencia's proprietors—but the tower proved useful as a lookout during WWII. The hotel became a temporary home for soldiers on leave or on their way overseas during the war.



New ownership of La Valencia acquired the neighboring Hotel Cabrillo (opened in 1909 as the Wilson-Acton Hotel) in 1956. (It was around that same time that the whole thing got painted pink.)



Designed by architect Irving Gill (and a landmark in its own right), it now serves as La Valencia's west wing.

We didn't know what we were looking for—or what we would see—when we arrived to La Valencia during San Diego's Open House weekend.



Fortunately, they let us go wherever we wanted.



We ended up in Cafe La Rue, on the Prospect Street level, with its 1940s murals by Wing Howard—an "artist in residence" at La Valencia in the most literal sense.



The Philadelphia artist provided his watercolors of French scenes (including that of the Bois de Boulogne) in exchange for room and board (and reportedly to pay off his bar tab). He repainted them in the 1970s after the originals had deteriorated.



The Whaling Bar, which replaced the street-level shops in 1953, is gone as of 2013—despite being one of Raymond Chandler's favorite watering holes and home to the favorite booth of local resident Dr. Seuss (a.k.a. Theodor Seuss Geisel). (Its iconic namesake mural, “The Whale’s Last Stand,” has been chopped up into four pieces and relocated to a hotel conference room.)



The Sky Room (circa 1960s) on the 10th floor has been gone since 2015. And the elevator to get to it is no longer manual.



The interior design has changed, too...



...though thankfully the lighting fixtures are old, if not original...



...and the Spanish tile remains, too.



But as much as what's stayed the time, La Valencia is constantly evolving—with private villas having been added in 2000, after a dozen years' worth of planning.



Even the pool—which overlooks La Jolla Cove—wasn't built until 1950, when the lower three floors (4, 5, and 6) were constructed into the cliffside. (Floors 1, 2, and 3 don't exist.)



Out there, by the terraced gardens, with the Pacific Ocean in the background, is really the pièce de résistance of La Valencia.



That's where you'll find a tile mural of the Pink Lady's own mascot in traditional Spanish costume, wearing her mantilla over her peineta and waving her fan over her pink dress.



According to The San Diego Union-Tribune, the 1928 tile portrait was contributed by tilemaker Ernest Batchelder, who also supposedly contributed a tile scene depicting Poseidon elsewhere in the hotel.

I have my doubts, but I've been unable to verify one way or another.

It should be easy enough to figure out, now that La Jolla isn't so hard to reach and attracts the attention of vacationers from Hollywood and all across the country.

Some might even say they started coming because of La Valencia.

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My Turn to Paddle

Following in My Own Footsteps

I haven't been travelling all that much since I quit my job in January, but when I found out Edith was going to San Diego on a business trip next week, I jumped at the chance to join her early and carve out even more of Southern California to make my own.

After arriving early this afternoon with relatively no itinerary, we ended up back in La Jolla for a nice oceanside patio lunch. We'd had a nice time at George's last year during our first ever trip to the San Diego area, watching our sunburns emerge on our arms and legs and feet as we sipped cocktails and sat once again unprotected from the sun. Back then we were delirious from kayaking, and although we made it down to La Jolla Cove to watch the birds and listen to the sea lions, we somehow missed out on La Jolla Cave, which must be entered by its folksy "Cave Gift Shop" at the end of the busy, trinket-laiden commercial strip.

Today's maitre d' at the Trattoria Acqua sat us directly overlooking the Cave Gift Shop, and given any inkling of a missed opportunity being repeated, we couldn't resist going in.

A white-haired, hunched man behind a desk took our four dollars each and pointed us to a stairway leading down what we were warned as "wet, slippery steps" - 145 of them, in fact. This is the only sea cave you can access by land on the California coastline, making it not only historic but also quite the curiosity. Scrawled in paint above our heads read, "LOW CEILING" and even we at five-foot-four had to duck and hunch ourselves just to make our way down.


As we descended down into a roughly-cut or blasted hole in the earth - reminiscent of our descent into the Atlantic Tunnel - the distance between the stairs seemed to get shallower, and the dampness nearer, until my sandals were squishing in puddles and trapping the water between my toes. We could hear moans in the distance - were they lost souls, or sea lions, or the incoming tide?

Turns out they were the pigeons that live down there.



At the bottom of the steps, you climb out onto a platform that brings you close to the mouth of the cave, with the sun filtering in blindingly. Even at low tide, the ocean comes in and splashes up on the rocks like an attack, waiting to snatch your camera or your shoes away from you.

At the end of the platform, just when you feel like you're all alone in the world like many a great explorer before you, snorklers bob their heads in and out of the water's surface, and a new group of curious folk - these some blonde-streaked, flatchested college girls - come down the slippery stairs in your footsteps.

And then you go back up.

But those few minutes you have marvelling at the jagged edges of the aperture makes you glad you're inside the cave instead of outside of it. And now you know what it's like in there.

I used to never want to go back to the same place twice, but I've learned to appreciate gaining a dynamic, quality understanding of a place rather than a superficial overview of it. So although I was tempted to try some new restaurant in some other neighborhood in San Diego today on our way to Escondido (which is new to me), I'm glad we retraced our steps. Maybe the place is the same, but it's a year later and we are different. It was nice to be able to see La Jolla just a little bit older and just a little less burned.

California Girl

I've never thought of myself much as a California Girl, but that's mostly from my trips to LA where I feel completely out of place. When I visited San Francisco in November '06, I actually thought I could live there - the first city I've ever considered an alternative to New York. But despite my East Coast upbringing and uptight nature, something keeps drawing me back to California.

I had a free flight to redeem on JetBlue (thanks to all that business travelling), so I decided to go somewhere far, where I'd never been. San Diego seemed as good as anyplace so I booked my trip for early March, when I'd surely be sick of NYC winter weather and I'd be longing for a trip (especially since I was skipping WMC this year).

In the process of evaluating a particular vacation destination, I always ask myself, "What's there?" In the case of San Diego, the answer was: wine country, mountains, lighthouses, beaches, and Mexico. That sounded like enough for a trip. Turns out it was actually too much for one trip, because I could have used at least one more day to drive on historic Highway 101, to explore the lighthouses of Point Loma, and to live the life of a local in San Diego.

Upon arrival on Wednesday, with Edith in tow, I drove to Coronado to see the historic Hotel Del Coronado, best-known for key scenes from Some Like It Hot and as the place where L. Frank Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz (the hotel's architecture itself perhaps inspiring Emerald City). We had a great late lunch there, joined by dozens of loud chirping birds with French fries in their beaks, and then walked along the beach, digging our toes into the empty mussell shells and getting gold rush glitter all over the tops of our feet. The sand there is firm and cold, textured and striated, sparkling in the sundown sun. And the water was freezing yet refreshing.

Our first night in the city, we did a bit of exploring through the historic Gaslamp District which might as well be Bleecker Street. We felt like we belonged a bit more at Quarter Kitchen in the Ivy Hotel, where we sipped a delightful Gruner Veltliner and sat at the bar of the open kitchen watching the chefs work their magic on food that smelled better than anything we'd experienced in recent NYC history. The Raw and the Cooked artichoke salad and lobster risotto were satisfying, but I still had the idea of going back and trying everything else on the menu in the back of my mind during the rest of our trip. And hoping to catch scraps from the kitchen in my mouth like a dog sitting on a kitchen threshold on Thanksgiving Day.

I tried not to make our entire trip about eating and drinking, but San Diego is known for its food and wine, so we definitely tried to take advantage. We had breakfast at Cafe 222 twice, eating both cornbread and pumpkin waffles and various egg dishes and good coffee with great service and a funky atmosphere that included chandeliers made of teacups and spoons. We also had dinner at The Guild, the restaurant outpost of a metal and design shop factory that's actually attached to (and visible from) the back, in a factory-dominated neighborhood that looks like it's bound for a NYC-style hipster takeover.

Our last morning before leaving, we brunched at Cafe Chloe, an elegant Parisian bistro east of downtown with delicious homemade croissants, a huge bowl of Mexican hot chocolate, and a clientele distinctly comprised of locals instead of Gaslamp-frequenting tourists.

The drinks in San Diego met every high expectation, from Porfidio tequila at the Grant Grill in the U.S. Grant hotel to the Karl Strauss locally-brewed beer at their downtown restaurant to the hundreds of beers on tap at the Yard House(including the Coronado Mermaid Red Ale), the only bar we could stand in downtown San Diego.

But as I said, we focused more on excursions outside the city. On Thursday we drove north to La Jolla where we braved kayaking for the first time in freezing cold water and burning hot sun. Overcoming my fears, we paddled out into the ocean by the La Jolla caves (which we weren't allowed to go into) and La Jolla Cove, where some really intense swimmers crossed our path. Mostly we were overwhelmed by the sound of the beached sea lions, barking out into the late morning, growls echoing off the rocks, making them sound like the smoky monster in LOST.

It was actually great to get some exercise while on vacation, but I was pretty intimidated by the idea of being out in the middle of the ocean by ourselves in a two-seater, especially when the ocean swelled and tipped our boat a bit. Thank God Edith has had some experience on the water, because I made her take charge (a nice switcheroo from me driving the rental car pretty much everywhere).

When we made it back to shore safely, a fully-dressed guy in jeans said to us, "Aren't you girls cold?" When we said we actually felt pretty good, he said, "You must be northerners then!" and we chuckled and kind of nodded, proud of where we're from and what we'd done.

A little self-reward came in the form of fish tacos at George's with a great ocean view and a bottle of Cucapa Osbscura cerveza, and a cute waiter to serve it to us.

Unfortunately, later in the evening, a horrendous sunburn emerged on the tops of my feet, shins, and arms that prevented me from sleeping properly and throbbing so badly that the look on my face sent Edith to the pharmacy for some Lanacane and Advil.

More adventures to be told later...

My Turn to Paddle

The first time I kayaked La Jolla Cove (which is, I think, the first time I ever kayaked), I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. I didn't wear a wetsuit. I forgot sunblock. I got burned so badly, I had to sleep with cold compresses on my legs, and get an ointment from my dermatologist.

At the time, I sat in the back of our tandem kayak and let Edith do a lot of the paddling work up front.

Technically, whoever sits in the back is supposed to be stronger and therefore in charge of paddling, but I got stuck back there because I was bigger than Edith, and my (heavier) weight had to anchor our vessel. I wasn't stronger, only bigger. The mildest current wiped my energy out. And there we were, out there in the ocean, amidst tiger shark and sea lions, all on our own.

Back then, we were a bit nervous about getting too close to the caves along the shore, much less paddling ourselves inside of any of them. The best we could do was, back on dry land, pay a couple of bucks to peer out at the ocean from a platform inside Sunny Jim Cave which, now a tourist attraction (accessible through the Cave Store), used to be where mob boss bootleggers brought booze in by rowboat during Prohibition.



But now that I live in California, and San Diego is only a couple of hours away, making annual visits easy enough, I could return, later in the year, on a sunnier day, and try again to get closer to at least one of the seven sister caves of La Jolla Cove.



This time, I booked a sea cave kayak tour with a group. Again, I declined a wetsuit, despite encouragement to the contrary. Again, I was in a tandem kayak, but without Edith at the bow, I got matched with a partner: a young Mexican father whose wife, son, and two teenage daughters had all paired off together. And, once again, I, the bigger passenger, got placed in the back.



Our guides coached us on how to paddle like hell through the surf to get out to sea, giving us a bit of a push over the cresting waves that others were surfing and paddleboarding.



I didn't remember such big waves, and I wondered how Edith and I had gotten out there on our own. I was glad not to be attempting it by myself.



Only this time, my partner in the front was more concerned with shooting video of his family out on the ocean than with paddling. I watched him rest his paddle across his lap as the current tried to sweep us alternately back to shore and out to sea, and...



...I paddled like hell.



How could I have once had such a cushy position at the stern, and now such a hard job - pushing not only my own weight, but also an extra large vessel, and the weight of an additional person, all by myself?



Since when was I in charge?



Actually, in some ways, I preferred to be the sole paddler. When we sidled up to the caves, I wanted to hang out and float, take some photos of my own, observe the cormorants, and bump up against the other kayaks. But in those peaceful moments of quiet observation, that's when my partner decided to go.



He never seemed to want to remain still, always encircling the group, getting too close to the rocks, paddling too much on one side, leading us too far astray for my preference. Once I'd had a taste of being in charge back there, at the helm of the stern - as tired as my arms were, as much as my hands were blistering, as much as my already burned legs were reddening - I wanted to steer us, solely, slowly.



At the end of the tour, passing sunbathing sea lions and dodging snorkelers, we actually got to paddle our way into an opening in the rocky shoreline - with openings at each end, not technically a cave, but more akin to a cavern.



Paddling into the cave through a straightaway, the side of the kayak bumping against the tunnel's rocky walls, we looked up at the wet rocks above us and let out various battle cries to hear our own echoing voices, as we bicyclists do when wheeling under highway overpasses. The current nearly sucked us into the other side, so we had to paddle hard just to remain still, making photography inside the cave itself impossible.

By the time our group was ready to turn around and return to the beach, I was marveling at how strong a paddler I'd become, having negotiated the rapids of the LA River just a few weeks before, and having carried much of the weight on this excursion. Unlike the LA River (where our kayaks have not been tandem), out in La Jolla, the ocean is deep, its terrain various - from an underwater canyon to a reef and even a desert and a kelp forest. You can really dig your paddle in and push, not merely skim the surface the way shallower waters sometimes dictate.

And on the way back, the ocean tide just brings you back in. If you sense a giant wave cresting behind you before you've reached shore, just lean back and let it take you. No paddling required.

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Photo Essay: San Diego's Modern Science

After reading about how Dwell-tastic it is, I booked an appointment to take a free architectural tour of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, down the road from the gliderport where I went paragliding last July. I couldn't be in San Diego for meetings without fitting in at least one or two sightseeing excursions.

The Seussian Mysteries of Mountain Munchkins and Bridges for Trolls

I'd gone to Mount Soledad in 2008 on my first trip to San Diego, but it was more or less by chance.



I'd read that there was a mountain with a view of the ocean and a cross on top of it, so I suggested we go check it out.



I didn't know then that Theodor Seuss Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) had called this mountain home...



...or that the mountain's lore was nearly as mythical and magical as the fantastical creations in the Seuss canon.



First, there are the Munchkins (as in, The Wizard of Oz). They never lived or even stayed on Mount Soledad, despite rumors to the contrary—but the myth was perpetuated because some of the houses that were built on the steep incline looked rather miniature.



And then there's the mini version of the Cabrillo Bridge, which famously brought visitors into the west entrance of Balboa Park for the 1915-16 Panama–California Exposition. The petite doppelgänger at Al Bahr Drive (Arabic for "By the Sea") followed in 1928.



its resemblance to the landmark of the Expo grounds—10 miles southeast as the crow flies—was no coincidence. The mini one was commissioned by San Diego transplant (by way of Indianapolis) William French Ludington, who'd purchased a large plot of very steep land on the slope of Mt. Soledad—considered "worthless" by many. "W.F." Ludington had been an early merchant in the prominent subdivision of La Jolla, moved to San Diego in 1904, and later became a director of the 1915-16 Panama Exposition.



In that role, he helped create the Cabrillo Bridge (Puente Cabrillo) as a way to traverse an unforgiving landscape. Likewise on Mount Soledad, he relied once again on those classical arches so that automobiles could access his new Ludington Heights development and snap up its ocean-view lots.



But one bridge proved to be not enough, so he built a second at Castellana Road—with a deck that connects to the dead-end Puente Drive (Spanish for "Bridge Drive") and a winding road that double-backs along a hairpin turn to send you under where you originally came from.

This one is even smaller, and it's obscured by lush landscaping that darkens its tunnels—which has earned it the nickname of the "Troll Bridge" (though that moniker has come to refer to both bridges on Mount Soledad).



The dense plantings were the work of past neighborhood resident Delbert C. "Del" Colby and his wife Lois, who used to live by the bridge at 1775 Castellana Road. Colby was a landscaper who owned Rancho Santa Fe Nursery (closed December 1992), and he used many of his own specimens to plant the triangular parcel. It's now designated Colby Park in his honor.



The construction date of this continuous concrete beam bridge presents another mystery of Mount Soledad, as conflicting reports have it as circa the 1930s, 1949, and 1950. CalTrans has no date at all for it in its Statewide Historic Bridge Inventory.

But considering the fact that Ludington himself died of a heart attack in 1928, it seems pretty clear that both bridges were built that same year—before the stock market crash of 1929 rendered much of his property worthless, at least for the duration of the Great Depression.

It appears that a resurgence of development came to Ludington Heights in 1947—but at that point, I'm pretty sure the bridges were already there.

And of course La Jolla as a whole, as well as Mount Soledad and Ludington Heights, are quite posh now.

Yet despite the popularity of the area, these two bridges remain curiosities, hidden from view for most.

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