The Annenberg Community Beach House at Santa Monica State Beach is a multi-use public beach recreation facility. It occupies the site of the historic Marion Davies Beach House commissioned by William Randolph Hearst in 1927 and designed by William Flannery. The Davies/Hearst five acre estate on Pacific Coast Highway included a one hundred room main house, a guest house, gardens, tennis courts and a pool. Only the Julia Morgan designed guest house and pool, both landmarks, remain and are restored.
The project is conceived as a series of indoor/outdoor recreation and event spaces, both formal and informal, woven through the site. The new buildings and landscape elements of the project are designed create a public gateway to the beach, an icon for the site’s history and a framework for many kinds of community uses, returning the site to its former status as a landmark for the City and southern California.
The new public beach facility includes a pool house on the site of the original mansion to serve the historic pool area with changing rooms and a community room. A colonnade of white concrete columns recalls the location and scale of the mansion. An event room and terrace overlook the pool and provides views along the coast. The existing Guest House is renovated to support public meetings. And a new Event House will accommodate larger public and private events. A garden includes a sculptural installation by Roy McMakin, a fountain and palm trees. Amenities along the new boardwalk include a children’s play area, a restaurant, gardens, a concession building, and beach volleyball courts.
With a vested interest in sustainability, it was always within the City of Santa Monica's plan to incorporate green design into this important historical adaptive-reuse project. Compliance with recycled content, renewable resources, energy & atmosphere and construction waste management have all helped this project in receiving a LEED Rating of Gold from the U.S. Green Building Council.