Category: Moss Beach

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Incident at Billy Grosskurth’s Hotel: Part III

On New Years Eve 1934 the superrich, eccentric George Whittell slipped into his chauffeur-driven automobile and began the bumpy ride from his Woodside estate, where at least one lion roamed about, and headed over a squiqqly road to the Coastside, to the Marine View Tavern in Moss Beach, and its host, Billy Grosskurth, the man with a showbiz past.

Since the end of prohibition business had grown quiet at both the Marine View and its neighbor, Franks, a llively roadhouse which had been built six years earlier. At the peak of prohibition, in the late 1920s, politicians and silent film stars wandered back and forth, between Billy’s hotel and the newer place next door.

The final minutes of 1934 were ticking away when George Whittell pulled up in front of Billy’s three-story hotel overlooking the Pacific. We can only imagine how shocked and stunned witnesses were when the elegantly dressed millionaire got out of the car with a lion cub on a leash–it was as though he were walking his pet dog.

I don’t know what brought George Whittell to Billy’s hotel. Maybe it was on a whim, to celebrate the closing of the old year in Moss Beach. What they talked about I haven’t a clue.

Charles P. Tammany, Whittell’s chauffeur, said that Billy invited Whittell and the adorable five month old pet lion into the hotel. Against the advise of Whittell, added the chauffeur, Billy began to play and tease the lion. The lion was so cuddly cute, but at that moment it wasn’t feeling playful–and started to maul poor Billy. Or so he said in the lawsuit that followed.

“It was a wild African lion of vicious and irascible nature,” testified Billy Grosskurth.

“It was a friendly gentle little lion kitten of kind and amiable temperament,” countered George Whittell.

For the terror and mauling he suffered, Billy sued the Woodside millionaire for $250,000. He added that Whittell was of a depraved and vicious character and delighted in the animal’s attack.

But Billy was no match for George. Whittell, playing a game he was long familiar with, responded that he was a Nevada resident which may have technically protected him from Californian litigation at the time– (remember, Whittell had built the spectacular Thunderbird Lodge at Lake Tahoe, on the Nevada side, which I have visited, and can assure the reader of its uniqueness, in particular, the underground tunnel where Bill, the lion roamed freely, and where George, after a late night of drinking and gambling took his friends on a tour–).

A year later Billy Grosskurth’s lawsuit was dismissed.

As for the Marine View Tavern, the glory of what it had been during Prohibition continued to fade but Billy refused to sell the property. By the 1950s the building was decaying–and Billy became a familiar sight on the porch, playing solitaire and reminiscing about the past.

During the summer of 1958 there was a fire in Moss Beach and the Marine View Tavern hotel was torn down. The hotel had been Billy’s life and a year later he died at age 75.

Last look at the Marine View Tavern

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Skipper Kent, Channing Pollock & Moss Beach

I knew the great magician Channing Pollock and his beautiful, artistic wife, Corri, when the eccentric couple moved from Beverly Hills to Moss Beach in the 1970s. My ex, John, had done some custom wood work for the Pollocks (the rock and wood work done in their bathroom appeared in Sunset Magazine) and through that relationship, we all became friends, and were invited to the home often.

The Pollocks also owned acreage, a ranch at San Gregorio where they grew and sold earthworms. We visited and spent time there, too.

(After his wife passed, Channing moved away).

When I knew Channing he was silver-haired and someone I could only call “spiritual”. It wasn’t that unusual in the 1970s–unusual in rural Half Moon Bay, I’ll grant that, but Channing was, well he was very different from any type of person I had known up until then. Around him, it felt like being in the pressence of the royalty, actually being around both of them.

I was surprised to learn thatChanning was a world famous magician, well known for the seven-minute act he performed with white doves. Handsome as a god, beautifully attired in a tux and tails, a lovely assistant at his side, Channing never spoke a word. No other magician had broken ground in this direction before: the sophisticated magician, a headliner the world over.

When you think of typical magic tricks, and the people who perform them, friends and neighbors– you think hokey–there was nothing hokey about Channing Pollock’s act. Of course, today many try to imitate Channing and many beat a path to Moss Beach. Channing was generous with time and shared it with those who found him.

You’d never have guessed that this suave looking man, part of whose professional life was spent in Europe, was originally a shy kid from Sacramento.

He and Corri arrived in Moss Beach in the mid-1970s having purchased a one-of-a-kind home overlooking the Pacific in Moss Beach. It was a spectacularly located one-floor house, with three wings, and huge floor-to-ceiling glass walls that made me feel very close to the crashing waves, which we were.

No interior decorator touched the Pollock’s house–there was a large library with esoteric and spiritual books, a piano, and standing guard over the windows was a huge Quan Yin statute (goddess of mercy). In whole, there was an artisticc look to the entire house, very comfortable and inviting.

Photo: Looking out a window into the garden with a granite waterfall in progress

Next door to the Pollock’s stood a special retreat for Catholic priests and personnel.

One of the former owners of the Pollock house was Skipper Kent, who also was married to an artist, a painter. Skipper Kent was the original builder of the house the Pollocks moved in, and I guess Kent built it in the 1940s or 50s. Skipper Kent was especially proud of the rock work lining the long entryway. He said he had dragged granite boulders from the beach up to his house and these he used along the driveway. I can’t imagine how he moved those rocks.

Because I am curious and loved tracking things down I found Skipper Kent, not in Moss Beach, but in Hawaii on the Big Island where he had moved.

Me wandering somewhere on the Big Island

By now I knew that Skipper Kent had been a famous restaurateur in San Francisco, second in popularity to Trader Vic’s. John and I flew to Hawaii and spent a day or two on the Big Island. While there we contacted Skipper Kent who kindly invited us to his home–but I forgot to bring my camera! I do recall the long landscaped uphill driveway to the house, reminiscent, in a way, of Moss Beach. Other than the nearness of the living sea, there’s not much in common between Hawaii and Moss Beach.

I did get this little bit of memorabilia from Skipper Kent

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Postage Perfect

The Moss Beach Post Office gets high marks for balancing the books in 1917.

The letter (click to enlarge or read below) is from:

United States Post Office
Burlingame, Cal. Nov. 3. 1917.

District Postmaster.
Moss Beach, Cal.

I have received from you this date under register No. 59 stamped paper for credit amounting to $180.71.

It is a pleasure to receive a report correct. Would like to shake hands with you.

Signature illegible
Central Accounting Postmaster

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Incident at Billy Grosskurth’s Hotel: Part II

Through his ties to the entertainment industry, Moss Beach hotel owner Billy Grosskurth met lots of eccentric characters but the red-haired Woodside millionaire George Whittell may have been the strangest of them all.

Perhaps the men became acquainted in Oakland. Whittell loved animals and he may have been drawn to Idora Park, where Billy worked as the theater’s manager. Part of the show included caged animals.

A third generation Californian, Whittell inherited a fortune from his parents who had invested wisely in real estate. Not the working type, George pursued the life eccentric. He owned a luxurious apartment in San Francisco, a chateau in France, an apartment in Paris–but these were just the trappings of the super rich, just like his custom made Duesenberg automobiles, world class speedboats, airplanes, expensive gadgets and toys were.

Of all the eccentric characters Billy Grosskurth met up with, George Whittell (below with is dog) may have been the strangest of them all. It was at his Woodside estate on Kings Mountain Road–and later at Thunderbird Lodge on Lake Tahoe– that he began to live out his fantasies. photo Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society

And his fantasies included a love of circus characters, and it was widely known that Whittell kept lions and elephants outside his Woodside home. Like Billy, he’d had woman trouble, too, though of a different nature. When George Whittell was an impulsive young man he wed an actress his parents disapproved of. They paid the lady to vanish and start another life. Later, again single, some women George met complained about his behavior, even resorting to the courts for financial compensation as a result of injuries they claimed to have suffered.

At Woodside he kept a lion that scared off U.S. Marshals attempting to serve him with a subpoena. A local joke was that a boa constrictor that hadn’t eaten in several months lived in a tree near the estate’s entrance.

By 1934 his erratic personal life had settled down. He married a lovely woman he met during World War I in Paris where he earned honors and distinction driving ambulances in the City of Lights. And unlike others who were financially devastated by the Great Depression, Whittell was one of the remarkable few who preserved his wealth by liquidating his stocks before the market crash.

All was not perfect in his life. George was in the middle of a thorny situation. He was being sued by his stepbrother Alfred for half of the family inheritance–reportedly some $9 million. As Whittell tried to overturn Alfred’s suit, the newspapers rubbed their hands together, anticipating a juicy trial.

Whittell’s lawyers recommended that he change residence to avoid his stepbrother’s lawsuit and so he was building a fabulous getaway at Lake Tahoe called Thunderbird Lodge–outfitted with a boathouse large enough to berth his custom-built 50-foot speedboat, powered with two airplane engines. There was also special housing for three elephants, stone stables standing side-by-side, outfitted with individual fireplaces to keep the animals warm when the weather turned cold.

How unlikely it seemed that the paths of Moss Beach hotel owner Billy Grosskurth and Woodside millionaire George Whittell would cross–but that is exactly what happened in an extraordinary encounter on New Years 1934 at the Marine View Hotel.

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Heady Times At Billy Grosskurth’s Hotel: Part I

Photo: Marine View Tavern

By 1934 Prohibition had ended, and now that it was legal to drink booze in Half Moon Bay roadhouses, people stopped coming to the Coastside.

Instead attention turned to the Bay Meadows Race Track in San Mateo that had just flung open its gates– and to make things sweeter, a rich Burlingame car dealer was about to purchase Seabiscuit, the famous super-racehorse that was going to help distract people’s minds from the doldrums of the Great Depression.

There was a real drought at Moss Beach where generous shots of liquor had dried up at the Marine View Tavern, former vaudevillian Billy Grosskurth’s seaside roadhouse. Billy was a toe tapping piano player, all show biz, and proud of his talent. He’d had some success traveling with roadshows, too.

When his traveling days were over Billy managed a live theater in Oakland, part of an amusement park with “girlie productions”, thrilling roller coaster rides, a swimming pool and caged animals, including a bear called “Hi”.

One of the “girlies” may have been at the center of a lawsuit filed against Billy. He had pressed one of the young ladies–against her better judgment– to go down the “Joy Laundry”, a giant slide. Finally she did and like a self-fufilling prophecy, she was injured, thus the lawsuit.

That was just one of the lawsuits Grosskurth was dealing with when he decided to get out of town. He knew about the Ocean Shore Railroad and the little beach towns that were popping up on the San Mateo County Coastside. Friends said, “take a look, there might be a good investment for you.” He did and learned that the 20-room Marine View Hotel at Moss Beach was for sale, fell in love with it, and purchased it about 1915.
The three-story Marine View Tavern stands at the left. Both photos by R. Guy Smith

And it was a good investment. During the heady days of Prohibition, Billy’s fingers rolled across the piano keys as he entertained the politicians and silent film stars who wandered about, drinks in hand. Outside it was dark and on the reefy beach below it was business as usual for the rumrunners and bootleggers.

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Charlie Nye & The Reefs: Part III

Me at Charlie Nye’s Reefs II. Photo Suzanne Meek

In 1980 I interviewed Charlie Nye, whose father, also called Charlie Nye, had owned a wonderful restaurant called The Reefs in Moss Beach. It was unique, a foundation-less building with piers stuck in the sand. People came from all around to boat, collect shells and enjoy a bowl of ab chowder. The Charlie I talked with lived on the cliffs above the spot where the Reefs once stood. His place was called the Reefs II and across the way was another building that served as the Moss Beach Hotel.

Mother Nature kept reminding Charlie Nye, Sr. that the Reefs was a temporary building. Every time the tide was high the waves splashed against the Reefs. When it was stormy they lashed angrily at the building, wearing it down and tearing into the cliffs behind it, too.

Charllie Nye, Jr.: Finally there was a tidal wave and it lifted the Reefs off its pillars.

But Nye had anticipated this moment and already built the Reefs II on the safer cliffs above.

Charlie Nye, Jr.: This was completed, I think, in about 1926. Rooms were rented out to fishermen and people from the Valley who came when it got too hot. The Valley wasn’t air conditioned in those times. They came down for a month at a time.

Getting to Moss Beach from anywhere in the 1920s was frustrating.

Charlie Nye, Jr.: The road coming over Pedro Mountain was terrible, just awful. Words can’t describe it. It was just impossible. It went around turns and more turns, hairpin turns, short turns, backward turns. There were potholes on top of potholes. When you come down here today and complain about a few earth-slides on Devil’s Slide, well, that’s nothing compared to that old Pedro Mountain Road.
The way to Moss Beach via the Pedro Mountain Road

June: Any other memories of transportation in those days?

Charlie Nye, Jr.: I remember my father talking about the horse and buggy days. He said it took a full day to ride from San Mateo to Moss Beach. He said it could take four to five hours with a horse and buggy to haul lumber from Half Moon Bay to Moss Beach.

Charlie’s father loved his work.

Charlie Nye, Jr.: He ran the Reefs II until he was so blind that we forced him to stop. That was in 1967. He stopped serving food in 1965.

When I interviewed Charlie in 1980 the Reefs II was open on Saturday and Sunday–not for food but for conversation in an eccentric, historic environment.

Charlie Nye, Jr.: Curiosity seekers are coming in constantly. They say, ‘I didn’t know this was a bar. It doesn’t look like a bar. I often wondered what this place looked like. It looks like a curiosity shop’.

The Reefs II, as many knew it, doesn’t exist anymore–and I believe Charlie Nye has moved to Mexico.

Big waves brought The Reefs down:

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Charlie Nye & The Reefs: Part II

The Reefs at Moss Beach

Charlie Nye’s father, also called Charlie Nye, saw opportunity when his neighbors gave up after the Ocean Shore Railroad showed signs of faltering.

The 1906 earthquake, with its epicenter at nearby Mussel Rock, struck a mighty blow at the work the Ocean Shore was doing near Devil’s Slide. After having read personal horrifying accounts of the earth moving in downtown San Francisco, I can only imagine the shaking at the Slide.

In the 1880s Mr. Wienke, whose wife,Meta, was distantly related to the sugar king Claus Spreckels, established a beach resort at Moss Beach. Getting people to come was hampered because Wienke’s hotel was isolated and the carriage ride a long, dusty, uncomfortable one. The railroad, which planned an iron road from San Francisco to Santa Cruz, promised to deliver untold number of tourists–and now nature had reduced all that to temporary rubble as the Ocean Shore people cleaned up and took financial nventory.

I guess the railroad was committed to see their project through to the bitter end and they plowed ahead–even coming up with a couple of little gas powered coaches, much, much cleaner burning than the billows of black dirty smoke emitting from the coal-powered engines as they choo choo-ed across the Coastside landscape.

“My father had a chance to acquire ‘The Reefs’ which was built by Wienke,” Charlie Nye, Jr. explained.

That was exciting for what the Reefs had been built right on the sandy beach of the present day Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. There was no foundation as the building stood on 16-foot stilts.

Charlie Nye: When the Reefs was first built it was built on the sand and there were rows of bathhouses on one side and a dance floor on the other side where they used to have an orchestra. There was a road to the beach and people used to drive down with their horse and buggies. There was a chute we used to sllide groceries down from the cliff to the beach.”

A romantic place like this instantly drew the famous of the time, the botanist Luther Burbank, breeder of plums and prunes, and many other plant varieities, and the great writer Jack London, who loved the sounds of the sea and whose adventurious sea stories were read by every male child.

Guests fished, boated and hunted abalone.

On the day the Reefs officially passed from Mr. Wienke to Charlie Nye, the new owner faceda smelly problem.

Charlie Nye (deadpan): A dead whale had washed ashore–and it was highly potent. They tried everything they could think of to get rid of the carcass. Finally they blew it up with dynamite and there was just more whale over everything.

It was either Charlie’s father or Mr. Wienke who had done the interior decorating at The Reefs, using only what could be found locally. Every inch of wall, from floor to ceiling, was covered with silvery blue abalone shells. The abalone chowder was a big hit and in later years Charlie Nye’s father revealed the secret to his delicous recipe: mince the abalone in a sausage grinder.