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By Jorge Casuso
Friday 13 -- Darlene Bahr was on her hands and knees
peeling paint from the front entrance of the Santa Monica
Bay Woman’s Club when a man approached from the bus
stop just a few feet away.
“I’ve been standing at that bus stop for 20
years, and I never knew what happened in that building,”
Bahr said he told her.
As the club’s president, Bahr has grown used to people
wondering what goes on behind the stately entrance with its
stained glass windows and a row of doors that for years have
remained mainly closed.
The answer to the frequent question is something Bahr, who
seems to have boundless energy, is determined to change.
“We’re bringing this club back to life,”
she said. “It’s been dormant for 15 years. . .
It’s such a wonderful location. I just want to bring
it back to the community.”
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| Darlene Bahr stands
in the main hall of the Santa Monica Bay Woman’s
Club. (Photo by Jorge Casuso) |
Built in 1914, the magnificent structure on 4th Street near
the corner of Wilshire Boulevard has been all but shuttered
for the past two decades. The curved skylight above the large
main hall has been covered for so long, no one is sure if
it is flanked by rows of clerestory windows.
Leaks in the roof have caved in part of the ceiling in one
of the rooms and paint is peeling from the ceiling of another.
What’s more, the building, frequented by longtime club
members now in their eighties and nineties, has no handicap
facilities, and the kitchen isn’t equipped to cater
the events Bahr hopes will help nurture the old club back
to life.
Bahr estimates it will take some $2 million to restore the
three-story structure built at the dawn of World War I. Members
of the club, organized in 1905, raised enough not only to
pay for the $2,500 Downtown lot and cover the building costs,
they also bought “furniture, curtains, drapes, dishes,
the whole shebang,” Bahr said.
By 1922, the club had paid off the mortgage and the stately
building had become a premier center of social life in the
budding beachside city. Dances were held in the main hall
with its sweeping wooden floor, plays mounted on its stage
and concerts performed on the grand piano now mostly played
at an occasional Bar Mitzvah.
“This was really the cultural center, the place to come,”
Bahr said. “There were many prestigious women here.
One of the women was the wife of one of the founders of Santa
Monica.”
The club saw its hey day from the 1930s through the 1960s.
There was a juniors club, a needle work guild and a “well
baby clinic.” It was a place where women volunteered
to roll bandages for the Red Cross and knit and bake for charitable
causes. By the 1950s, the club boasted 700 members.
“That’s when women got educated and went back
to work,” Bahr said.
Busy bringing in a second paycheck and raising families, the
modern woman had little time to volunteer. The club’s
membership dwindled, and by the 1980s was mainly a place were
elderly members gathered to play bridge and hold an occasional
bake sale.
But that is now changing. There are tango dance classes on
Monday nights and ballet classes during the day, and next
month swing dancing will kick off on Friday nights. The Junior
League of Women is using the club for workshops and leadership
classes.
The club also is renting out the space for private parties,
and production companies are renting it as a holding tank
for cast and crews during film shoots Downtown.
“We’re getting back into the swing of things,”
Bahr said.
There’s still the weekly bridge game attended by some
40 members, which raises money for good causes, book sales
and bake sales and a sale in the back lot. Some of the money
helps pay for scholarships for Santa Monica High School (SAMOHI)
students, and this year the ladies are raising money for the
“Silver Slipper Project” to help buy dresses and
give makeovers to four girls for the SAMOHI prom.
The membership has grown to 78 (four new members joined recently)
and Bahr is now holding open houses to showcase the space
once used by Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons to film their
workout tapes. She’s even exploring the possibility
of recruiting men (“I recently read the bylaws and it
doesn’t say we can’t have them.”)
“Through word of mouth, people are finding us,”
Bahr said. “We have more younger women on board. We
just go out and hustle. Once we start renovating, more people
will get involved. It’s just a very exciting time for
the club.”
Those interested in joining the Santa Monica Woman’s
Bay Club or renting space can call 310.395.1308.
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