Casa de cadillac

Casa de Cadillac is a Buick/GMC/Cadillac dealership located on 14401 Ventura Boulevard, in Sherman Oaks, CA. Due to its classic Googie architecture and tenure in the area since 1949, Casa de Cadillac has become an architectural landmark in the San Fernando Valley.^[1]

History

Casa de Cadillac opened in 1949 at 14401 Ventura Boulevard, and it has operated continuously in the same facility since that time until today. The original dealership was part of the Don Lee Cadillac operations, a dealer group that operated Cadillac dealerships throughout the state of California, including major cities such as Fresno, Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco, Pasadena, and Los Angeles. Despite efforts by General Motors to convert several of Lee's holdings into factory stores, Casa de Cadillac remained in the Lee family.^[2]

Ownership of Casa de Cadillac passed from Lee to Martin Pollard in the early 1950s. Pollard was influential in local business and an active member of the San Fernando Valley community. He served at various times as the President of Valley Presbyterian Hospital, President of the Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce, the first chairman of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority.^[3] In 1959, Pollard was the first ever recipient of the "Fernando Award" in 1959,^[4] awarded by the Fernando Award Foundation, Inc. in recognition of outstanding community volunteerism in the San Fernando Valley. Upon Pollard's death in 1970, the Sherman Oaks branch of the Los Angeles Public Library was named in his honor.

After Pollard's death, James Wilson became president of Casa de Cadillac and was active in its daily operations from 1963 until 2008. During that time Casa Automotive Group (the parent company of Casa de Cadillac) acquired several additional franchises (Buick, GMC, Saab, Subaru, Hummer, and Kia). Although they continue to bill themselves as a Cadillac dealership, it has also expanded to include Buick and GMC vehicles in line with the Buick-Cadillac-GMC network of dealerships in the GM pipeline.

In 2008, Wilson passed ownership to his daughter and son-in-law, Susan and Howard Drake. Howard Drake currently runs daily operations for Casa Automotive Group and Casa de Cadillac.

Architecture

Designed by Randall Duell in 1948,^[5] Casa de Cadillac is now considered a prime example of Googie architecture.^[6] It has been included in modern architectural walking tours organized by the Modern Committee of the Los Angeles Conservancy^[7] and Los Angeles Times^[8] and has become a popular location for photography and filming.

Popular culture

- During the early to mid-1970s, the television game show Let's Make A Deal gave away many new Cadillac automobiles announcing, during the description of the prize, that the car was from Casa de Cadillac.

- In Michael Bay's Transformers, the character Jazz drops down from the roof of the Casa De Cadillac dealership before transforming into vehicle form to meet with the other Autobots at Bumblebee's location.

- In the 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger action film Commando, the character Cooke commandeers a Cadillac and drives it through the display window.^[9]

- In Tom Petty's "Free Fallin" (1989), Casa de Cadillac stands prominently across the street from the pink Future Dogs hot dog stand.

- In NBC's Up All Night, Christina Applegate and Will Arnett look for a potential new family car.

- In The Bernie Mac Show 2004 episode "Make Room for Caddy"

External links

• Original photo of Don Lee Cadillac taken in 1949

References