Of course now it was padlocked, boarded up and crumbling, but basically, it hadn’t changed much in the last 26 years. It was already beat up pretty good the first time I was there.
I stood on the concrete steps for a minute, and looked back out on the Pacific Ocean, wondering how many bowling alleys in the world ever had a view like that.
I had a job interview in that building in the summer of 1980. I drove down from Anaheim following a simple set of directions. “Take the freeway south to the Denny’s sign, turn right till it ends.”
That part hadn’t changed either.
The Spanish-styled building on the corner of Avenida Pico and El Camino Real was rounded on top like a loaf of bread. It was built as a six-lane bowling alley and back then the patterned-wood lanes were still on the floor where they built the sets in the back. It was now serving as an annex for California’s first dinner theatre, Sebastian’s West, which occupied the dramatic circular building with the domed roof next door.
When I sat down in President Ernie Verre’s corner office that day, I couldn’t help but stare out the windows. They overlooked what I soon learned was North Beach.
“That’s the beach,” I kept mumbling under my breath. “Right there. That’s the Beach.” Then Verre would tell me something else about the job, and I’d say, “that’s the beach, right there ... isn’t it?” And the parking lot was empty.
I’ve often told the story of taking my tie and shoes off afterwards and walking in the sand the mile down to the pier and back, taking my first glimpses of San Clemente and realizing somewhere along the way that I’d probably never leave it.
Well, the building became my office, too. I started my own typesetting and graphics company there in 1981.
Since 1926, the area was tabbed to be the entertainment - recreation area of the village. In 1928, they put in a community pool with lockers and meeting space and called it The Plunge. It was the first Olympic-sized pool south of the Coliseum. Ole Hanson promoted swimming exhibitions at the site in the late 1920s where the likes of Buster Crabbe, Johnny Wiesmueller and even Duke Kahanamoku kept the view-balcony full.
It would be refurbished in 1982 and become the Ole Hanson Beach Club and Pool. The pool ended up a few feet shy of Olympic-sized, but the property is one of the city’s most beautiful assets.
Behind that old bowling alley was the Miramar Theatre. It was built in 1938, a year after the Casino. When the Capital Company, a division of the Bank of America who owned most of the property in town, tried to jump-start real estate sales again after the stock market crash and the town’s population dropped to the low hundreds. I wasn’t around for the movie theatre’s grand days, but in the ‘80s I found it pretty unique. They served tacos at the snack bar and held an occasional midnight screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. They brought in some pretty good concerts there, too. I also remember an Orange Julius hot dog stand on the El Camino Real side of the Miramar Theatre, and a lumber company on the side of the bowling alley.
But the Casino, which was to become the dinner theatre, was the most impressive part. On its opening day in 1937, over 5,000 people showed up to dance and drink when the town’s population was only about 300. The ‘30s were big band time and the solid wood floor was built with a suspension system that allowed dancers to feel like they were floating. The acoustics from the domed ceiling were second to none.
The Verre’s had brought the concept of dinner theatre to California, taking the name “Sebastian’s” from a dinner theatre in Florida and naming it Sebastian’s/West. The tides of economy and differences among partners caused the business to be sold to Al and Barbara Hampton who had another dinner theatre in Costa Mesa called the Harlequin. It went through a few names like SouthHampton and Cabo Wabo, but closed until Richard Lee would buy it for his China Healthways Institute.
The 7-11 was across the street like it is today, and behind that was the Anchor Inn, a building once-famous for wall-sized aquariums where diners could allegedly choose their main course while it was still swimming, The building enjoyed a brief incarnation as Margarita Village, but today is a japanese restaurant called Ichibiri’s. Next door, the Genovese family had an Italian restaurant named Ernestos that was flooded in the storms of 1983. The property was then sold to the city under the law of eminent domain. Their youngest son had already opened the ever popular Sonny’s Pizza, downtown on El Camino Real.
The train station came along later, but even in ‘81we were able to get Amtrack to make stops at North Beach to drop off theatre patrons for weekend matinees. There had been a station there early on and street maps still call the street along the tracks Avenida Estacion.
The founders had also built a pro-size baseball diamond in the bowl just inland from where the theatres were built, they had brought in a pro team from Seattle to work out there off-season and we even fielded a San Clemente baseball club for a while. But the field was later filled in with one of San Clemente first sub-divisions, a collection of unique colonial style, A-shaped homes.
All of San Clemente seemed a sleepy village to me back in 1981, but North Beach was different, it felt like an old amusement park that hadn’t been updated in half a century.
The comprehensive development plan put forth to the city, and outlined in the previous article, might be just what we need to wake the old girl up.b

Sterling Young and his Orchestra were the rock stars of their day, 1938.

The baseball field was built in a place called The Bowl, immediately inland from the Casino.

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