| Catalina Casino | |
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Casino (From Descanso Bay, Outside Avalon Harbor) |
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| Location | Avalon, California, U.S. |
| Established | 1927 |
The Catalina Casino is located in Avalon on Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles. It is the most recognizable landmark in the City of Avalon. It contains a theatre, a ballroom, and a museum.
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The Catalina Casino was built on the site formerly known as Sugarloaf Point. This site was cleared away to allow for the construction of the Hotel St. Catherine. However, this hotel was eventually built in Descanso Canyon instead. When chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. bought the controlling stake in Catalina Island, he used this cleared spot to build the dance hall which he named Sugarloaf Casino. It served as a ballroom and Avalon's first high-school. Its time as a casino was short, however, for it proved too small for Catalina's growing population. In 1928, the Casino was razed to make room for a newer Casino. Sugarloaf Rock was blasted away to enhance the Casino's ocean-view.
On May 29, 1929, the newer Casino finished construction under the direction of Mr. Wrigley and David M. Renton at a cost of 2 million dollars. Its design, done by Sumner A. Spaulding and Walter Weber, is described as being Art Deco and Mediterranean Revival, and was the first to be designed specifically for movies with sound. Steel structure of the old Sugarloaf Casino can still be found in Avalon's abandoned bird park. The bird park was conceived by Mrs. Wrigley, and, at the time, was one of the largest aviaries in the world. The bird-park now serves as a daycare for the local residents of Avalon.
In 1993 the theater was photographed by Hiroshi Sugimoto for his series "Theaters." In September 2008, it played host to the first live full production of a musical on its stage: the Santa Catalina Island Company produced Grease!.
Surrounded by sea on three sides, the circular structure of the Catalina Casino is the equivalent of 12 stories tall. It has a movie theatre and museum on the first level and a dance hall on the top level. To reach the top level, Wrigley built the Casino with two ramped walkways that extend from the circular core, with two small lobby spaces as well as bathrooms just below the dance floor. Wrigley took the idea to use ramps instead of stairs from his Chicago Cubs stadium. The ramps allowed the large numbers of people using the ballroom to quickly move to and from their destinations. The building was decorated with sterling silver and gold leaf.
The Avalon Theatre, on the first level, shows first-run movies nightly. The theatre has one movie screen and a seating capacity of 1154.[1] The theatre is so well-insulated that patrons cannot hear the band playing or the 6,000+ dancers on the floor above, yet the acoustics are so good that a speaker on the theatre stage can speak in a normal voice without a microphone and be heard clearly by all in attendance. Additionally, the theatre still has its original 4-manual, 16 rank theatre pipe organ built by the Page Pipe Organ Company of Lima, Ohio. It played every Friday and Saturday evening. The circular domed ceiling has remarkable acoustics studied by experts. The theatre lobby is paneled with walnut wood.
The upper level houses the world's largest circular ballroom with a 180-foot (55 m) diameter dance floor. French doors encircle the room, and balcony views are spectacular. The dance floor has a capacity of over 6,000 dancers. The upstairs dance floor was briefly used by the local high school basketball team.