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Tag: Seal Beach Real Estate

  • May 30th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1936, the Santa Ana Register ran the following real estate ad.

    Except for differences in style, this ad uses much of the same pitch for Seal Beach as real estate ads from twenty years earlier. Lots at the beach, low prices and easy terms, gals in swimsuits, all the modern city amenities, perfect for a summer  vacation cottage, a home, or as investment, and so on. If the lots were truly selling as fast as claimed, there wouldn’t have been so many vacant lots in Seal Beach well into the late seventies.

    May_30_1936_Seal_Beach_RE_ad– Michael Dobkins

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  • April 11th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1914, the Guy M. Rush Company hosted a special promotional excursion to Seal Beach. A special train left San Bernardino at 8 a.m. with seats reserved for the holders of fifty special $2.35 tickets for the excursion. Tickets were also allotted for purchasers in Riverside, Ontario, and Pomona, all cities with stops for boarding on the route to Los Angeles, then Long Beach, and finally Seal Beach. The price included a free lunch and free Saturday  band concert.

    This was the second of two heavily promoted Seal Beach excursions from San Bernardino in early 1914. The first excursion on March 22 was covered in this post. Like the earlier excursion, the real purpose was to sell city lots.  Sales must have been disappointing because this was the last such excursion. The Guy M. Rush would continue marketing Seal Beach real estate to Los Angeles County, Long Beach, and Orange County, but these three ads from March and April 1914 featuring cartoonist Henri De Kruif’s seals were the last attempts to hook Riverside and San Bernardino County residents into buying lots in Seal Beach.

    – Michael Dobkins

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    This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

  • April 10th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1966, the Long Beach Independent ran this real estate ad for homes in College Park and El Dorado Park Estates.

    April_10_1966_CPE_Ad-3– Michael Dobkins

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  • March 30th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1958, the Long Beach Independent ran the following real estate ad enticing the reader to “Live At The Beach in smog free Marina Shores.”

    Bordered by Bolsa Avenue and Bay Boulevard (now Seal Beach Boulevard), Marina Shores was developed by the Butler-Harbour Construction Co. and sold by Walker & Lee, Inc.. The new tract was promoted by five model residences on display at 600 South Shore Drive. Marina Shores homes were three or four bedroom homes with luxury baths, large family rooms, and color-matched kitchens. Some models featured built-in dishwashers and refrigerators. One of the five model homes had a large swimming pool and two separate patio areas. Terms started at $1450 down, $114 a month and were considered “ideal for families with an income of $600 a month or more.” 

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • March 22nd in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1914, hundreds of people embarked on a Sunday excursion from San Bernardino to Seal Beach sponsored by the Guy M. Rush Company as represented by Edwin R. Post. If the San Bernardino Country Sun’s estimate is to be trusted, there were “over 125 people from San Bernardino, nearly as many from Redlands and nearly 225 from Riverside.”

    The sale of real estate is indelibly entwined in almost all aspects of Seal Beach history and this excursion, the first of two in the early part of 1914, was no different. In publicizing the excursion, Seal Beach was described as “growing rapidly and is one of the great attractions in the Long Beach district” and also as “one of the last close-in beaches of a desirable character.” Folks who were “interested in securing this class of property” were “were invited to see it and get first hand information as to its beauties and advantages.”

    The promotional copy style seems stilted today, but the sales concept is familiar to anyone who has ever sat through a timeshare sales presentation for a “free” dinner or chance to win a big screen television.

    The marketing plan was to entice potential buyers to Seal Beach with its new bathhouse and pavilions with promises of food and fun, but once they were stuck in town for the day, there were real estate salesmen close by, each ready with a hard sell pitch and a contract.

    For a mere dollar, excursionists would leave the Salt Lake station in San Bernardino at 8 am and ride to Riverside and then on to Long Beach. They would then take a Pacific Electric car for short ride a few miles east to Seal Beach. Waiting in Seal Beach was a free bathing suit for a dip in the ocean, a free lunch, and a free band concert, and you can bet that at every point where something free was given, somebody would be there to give a speech, make a pitch, or point out the available lots.

    (If you’re tempted by all this to feel a nostalgia for a simpler and more innocent times, take note of the the odious words, “Rigid race restrictions” openly listed as one of Seal Beach’s selling points in the last ad in this post. Nostalgia is a harsh mistress.)

    This excursion was just a few months after Bay City had been renamed Seal Beach and a year and a half before the city was officially incorporated by election in 1915. The roller coaster and the rest of the amusement zone attractions wouldn’t be built until 1916. Most of the features and landmarks that stood out from this era of Seal Beach’s past don’t exist yet.

    Still, to someone from San Bernardino and its typical inland high temperatures, just standing on the edge of the Pacific Ocean and feeling a cool sea breeze brush across your face must have been a treat.

    – Michael Dobkins

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  • March 16th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1980, the Los Angeles Times ran this ad for the Rossmoor Park Condominiums at 12200 Montecito Road.

    It may be just a nostalgia for earlier times speaking, but real estate ads became very dull and unimaginative towards the latter part of the Twentieth century.
    – Michael Dobkins

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    This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

  • March 9th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1931, a letter from Seal Beach Mayor Frank Wilson was read to Los Angeles Board of Supervisors explaining the Seal Beach city council’s opposition to the Flood Control District’s plans to improve the San Gabriel River channel by straightening it and adding two jetties to catching drifting sands to build more of a beachfront.

    In the letter, Mayor Wilson said:

    “The residents of Seal Beach for many years have visualized a sixty-foot vehicular bridge across the Alamitos Bay channel and the City Council, as a whole, is now reluctant to commit any official act the would in any wise jeopardize the rights of the municipality.

    The Council feels that the plans for San Gabriel flood control should not be approved as requested by Engineer Eaton until some provision has been made for such a vehicular bridge.”

    In other words, if you want your flood control, give us a bridge.

    There were other concerns expressed in the letter — care for the cooling waters from the Los Angeles Gas and Electric Corporation’s steam plant, a permanent right of access to any beach formed by the east jetty, and the need for the two jetties to be constructed at equal lengths.

    But the most important idea was Seal Beach needed an Ocean Avenue bridge for automobiles replacing the rail bridge used exclusively for Pacific Electric red car trolleys.

    Negotiations continued until an agreement was reached to include an Ocean Avenue bridge in the project in July 1931, and Seal Beach approved the project. The Los Angeles Gas and Electric Corporation granted a right-of-way for the bridge in September, and the War Department approved the plans in October 1931.

    Construction began in early 1932, and the completed bridge was opened to traffic on October 20, 1932. Mrs. Phillip A. Stanton cut the string.

    And that, my friends, is how Seal Beach got itself a bridge in a short nineteen and a half months.

    – Michael Dobkins

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    This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

  • March 8th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1914, the Guy M. Rush Company ran an ad for Seal Beach in the Los Angeles Times, featuring cartoonist Henri DeKruif’s indefatigable seals.

    This time the seals climb a ladder to a diving board for a “Dive to Briny Coolness.” This was meant to entice potential buyers into buying a house close to the beach because “Hotter days are on the way!” This makes perfect sense. For as we all know, “Seal Beach never sizzles. It’s as cool as a cucumber all summer.”

    – Michael Dobkins

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    This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

  • March 7th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1965, The Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram reported that a familiar Naval Weapons Station landmark on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Bay Boulevard (Seal Beach Boulevard today) would soon be gone.

    The landmark was the stack of anti-submarine buoys stored on the base since World War II. The buoys had once been an effective barrier for enemy submarine gaining entry into California harbors. Modern submarine technology no longer needed such close proximity for attacks, and the buoys were ultimately declared obsolete.

    For the better part of two decades, the buoys sparked fears that they would explode a scant few feet from Pacific Coast Highway traffic and opposition from developers and realtors who felt those fears hurt Seal Beach property values. But these were buoys, not weapons or munition, and the only thing explosive about them was the interest of photographers itching to use the buoys in cleverly composed images for newspapers and local publicity.

    In early 1965, the Department of Defense announced that the obsolete buoys would be auctioned off with the expectation that the winning bidders would have the buoys cleared from the Naval Weapons Station by late May. This expectation was partially fulfilled. 17,000 buoys were sold and carted off mostly to be used for scrap metal, and 5,000 remained in symmetrical stack formation to continue intriguing and vexing residents and motorists well into the seventies.

    I have a line out to the the weapons station to find out when the remaining buoys were finally removed. I’ll update this post if I get an answer.

    Can’t quite picture where the buoys were located? Click here to view a 2010 post that pinpoints the location.

    – Michael Dobkins

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    This Date in Seal Beach History also has an online store hosted at Cafepress where you can order shirts, tote bags, stationery, and other gift items imprinted with vintage Seal Beach images. Visit the online store by clicking here.

  • March 6th in Seal Beach History

    On this date in 1936, the Los Angeles Times reported that demolition of the Seal Beach amusement zone was underway.

    Described as “one of Southern California’s famous pre-prohibition amusement centers,” the land was to be converted to a “swanky subdivision” with ocean frontage. The roller coaster, a transplant from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco (most likely just the design and the rails, the wood was provided by a Long Beach Lumber company), the fishing pier (already damaged in a 1935 storm), and the Jewel City Cafe were all to be razed. It’s safe to assume that the scintillators and the pavilion were also scheduled to be destroyed, but the Times story didn’t mention them.

    (For some reason the damaged pier wasn’t actually demolished until 1938 when the city successfully litigated to take ownership. A new pier was finally built in 1939.)

    All this prime oceanfront real estate had been the property of the Bayside Land Company, a company owned by Phillip A. Stanton and other Seal Beach founding fathers, but the prosperity that seemed so imminent when the city incorporated back in 1915 never fully arrived. Prohibition, the Spanish Flu epidemic, malfeasance from contractors and licensees, stiff competition from other cities, and finally the Great Depression all held Seal Beach back from taking off the way the Bayside Land company stockholders and other city founders had envisioned twenty years earlier.

    A significant portion of Seal Beach real estate remained empty and undeveloped. The amusement zone fell into disuse and disrepair, and the pier and the rest of the beachfront no longer attracted crowds. Finally, Security First National Bank took over the Bayside Land Company’s holdings in foreclosure sale held in August 1935. Those holdings was said to make up nearly 50 per cent of the city.

    Management at Security First National Bank had a different vision for Seal Beach, one that is still recognizable in modern day Seal Beach. A program of civic improvements and new construction was launched to enhance the community.  The bank installed The Dickson Realty in the old Bayside Land Company Building at Ocean Avenue and Main Street with an exclusive contract to sell the bank’s Seal Beach holdings. Once again, Seal Beach’s future seemed filled with bright possibilities.

    And the era of Seal Beach as a seaside amusement attraction was done. It began in full force with a grand opening on Saturday, June 10, 1916 and ended with wrecking balls in early 1936 without even lasting a complete twenty years.

    Still, the romance and giddy promise and excitement of those early days of Seal Beach lives on our imaginations.

    – Michael Dobkins

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