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Image / Westport Beach Club, Playa del Rey

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Title
Westport Beach Club, Playa del Rey
Alternative Title
Los Angeles Photographers Photo Collection;
Creator
Schultheis, Herman
Contributor
Made accessible through a grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation
Date Created and/or Issued
Circa 1937
Contributing Institution
Los Angeles Public Library
Collection
Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
Rights Information
Images available for reproduction and use. Please see the Ordering & Use page at http://tessa.lapl.org/OrderingUse.html for additional information.
Description
Title supplied by cataloger.; Herman J. Schultheis was born in Aachen, Germany in 1900, and immigrated to the United States in the mid-1920s after obtaining a Ph.D. in mechanical and electrical engineering. He married Ethel Wisloh in 1936, and the pair moved to Los Angeles the following year. He worked in the film industry from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s, most notably on the animated features Fantasia and Pinocchio. His detailed notebook, documenting the special effects for Fantasia, is the subject of a 14-minute short-subject included on the film's DVD. In 1949, he started employment with Librascope as a patent engineer. Schultheis was an avid amateur photographer who traveled the world with his cameras. It was on one of these photographic exhibitions in 1955 that he disappeared in the jungles of Guatemala. His remains were discovered 18 months later. The digitized portion of this collection represents the images Schultheis took of Los Angeles and its surrounding communities after he relocated to the area in 1937.
Architect Stephen Gooson designed the Spanish Colonial Revival style 1925 Westport Beach Club located at 7301 Vista Del Mar in Playa del Rey. Surrounding the club a small exclusive residential district was built comprised of 45 beachfront properties. The original clubhouse burned in a fire in 1964. The beach club closed in 1978 and was demolished in 1984 for a condo development.
This view of the Westport Beach Club includes the clubhouse, people watching an event around the pool, sunbathers, beach cabanas, surf and sand.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;11 x 15 cm.
Photographic prints
Identifier
00096803
Herman J Schultheis Collection; Los Angeles Photographers Collection;
N-005-866 8x10
CARL0005099670
http://173.196.26.125/cdm/ref/collection/photos/id/38731
Subject
Westport Beach Club (Playa del Rey, Los Angeles, Calif.)
Beachgoers--California--Los Angeles
Sunbathing--California--Los Angeles
Clubs--California--Playa del Rey (Los Angeles)
Architecture--California--Playa del Rey (Los Angeles)--Spanish influences
Beaches--California--Playa del Rey (Los Angeles)
Cabanas--California--Los Angeles
Umbrellas--California--Los Angeles
Spectators--California--Los Angeles
Lost architecture--California--Playa del Rey (Los Angeles)
Playa del Rey (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Pacific Ocean
Schultheis Collection photographs
Gooson, Stephen

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