Investing in a dream

JERRY PERSON

“Huntington Beach is one of the most rapidly growing towns in

Southern California and the need for a modern hotel and theater has

long been felt.”

This statement could well be true today as it was back in

Huntington Beach’s oil boom year of 1923.

Today we have the Hyatt Resort with no theater and we have the

Bella Terra mall with 18-20 theaters to be built without a hotel.

But in 1923 plans were made for both to be included in one

structure.

At that time the only vaudeville and motion picture theater in

town was the Princess Theater at 207 Main St., owned since April of

1922 by J. Cleve Scott.

But this theater had very limited seating and with the new influx

of oil people, fly-by-night con men, get-rich quick artists and the

wife and children of the oil workers, a need became apparent for a

newer and bigger theater to entertain the new residents of our town.

It was early in 1923 that several of the town’s important citizens

organized the Huntington Beach Investment Company.

The directors of this company included R. Leonard Obarr,

president, David O. Stewart, vice president, Joseph Vavra, treasurer,

William J. Elliott, secretary, and Charles Patton, H.T. Dunning and

E.A. Suter as directors.

Obarr was a City Council member and owner of Obarr’s Drug Store.

Stewart was a land investor and was on the board of the Security

Trust & Savings Bank. Vavra was city treasurer, a director of the

First National Bank and the Huntington Beach Nursery proprietor.

Elliott was in the brick and tile manufacturing business. Patton was

a former banker, president of the local realty board, and president

of the H.B. Chamber of Commerce and had his own real estate office in

town.

Dunning was also a director at First National Bank and manager of

the Golden West Warehouse Co. Suter had been a former mayor of

Fairbanks, Alaska, a secretary of the Home State Bank of Huntington

Beach and a partner in the firm of Huston, Suter and Huston at 109

Main St. The company’s first project would be building a large

two-story building with a basement at Fifth Street and Olive Avenue.

The first floor of this proposed project would include nine retail

stores and a modern theater with seating for 900 people.

A modern hotel with a large number of furnished rooms renting for

$350 a month would be on the second floor.

The company bought the property and dwellings on it and hired

Santa Ana architect M. Eugene Durfee to draw the plans.

The company hoped that the revenue from the theater, hotel and

retail stores would provide a very handsome return on their

investment.

They estimated that the gross revenue would bring in about $18,000

a year.

Even at that amount it would take some time for investors to see a

profit.

Their building was estimated to cost $80,000, a large sum for that

time.

The company incorporated with an authorized capital stock of

$100,000 and executives went out into the community looking for

investors.

They had high hopes that the community would buy stock in their

new project.

Plans called for white, enamel-faced, pressed bricks with terra

cotta trim and siding and on the inside of the theater plans included

a 30-foot by 25-foot stage for stock players and road companies

touring the county.

When the stage was not in use, a movie screen was lowered so the

two state-of-the art projectors could show audiences Hollywood’s

latest offerings.

A monster pipe organ would be included in the plans to supply

music for the silent movies and the live productions.

Their building would be built to the best fireproof standards of

the time.

In July, 1923 Peter Vachon bought the homes at the site and had

them moved over to the Vista Del Mar tract on the east side of Lake

Street.

Meanwhile, the project began to sour as construction costs rose to

more than $100,000 and stock sales cooled.

By the end of the year the project was dead and Huntington Beach

was deprived of a modern movie palace, at least for two more years.

Then J. Cleve Scott built his modern Scott’s Theatre on Fifth Street

and Walnut Avenue that would later become the famous Surf Theater.