Revitalizing Avalon

Luis Estrada works on a wall at the new Catalina Island Museum. “This institution is going to change Avalon forever,” museum Executive Director Michael De Marshe said, raising his voice to be heard over the clamor of hammers and saws.   (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Viewed through a construction screen with an artist’s conception of the new museum on it, a worker scrapes away debris. The museum, scheduled to open in 2015, has already altered centers of influence on the island.   (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

A worker welds huge steel beams for a retaining wall at the new Catalina Island Museum. Some of the museum’s largest financial contributors were formerly allied with the nonprofit Catalina Island Conservancy, which manages the island’s wild lands.   (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Perrin Smith, 18, of Avalon chats with a group of students from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas next to a construction sign in Avalon.   (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Michael De Marshe, executive director of the Catalina Island Museum, talks about the new project. He had been the founding director of three museums, including the Cafesjian Center for the Arts in Yerevan, Armenia.   (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

An advertisement about the changes coming to Avalon can be viewed at the island’s tourist bureau. Over the decades, visitors were drawn to the town by its quaint oceanfront Victorian cottages and a beach edged with a curved, cafe-lined promenade. In the 1960s, celebrities, tourists and developers began gravitating toward newer resorts blossoming on the mainland: Disneyland, Palm Springs, Lake Arrowhead.   (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Tourists walk along the Crescent Avenue traffic circle near “The Landing Restaurant and Shops” building, which is being refitted to become the Encanto Spa.  (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

A construction zone down the street from where the new Catalina Island Museum is being built. The building boom follows an uptick in tourism over the last four years attributed, in part, to new attractions including a zip line and novel museum exhibits that had little to do with the island’s heritage.   (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Tourists on Segways approach a construction zone on Crescent Avenue, near where the new museum is being erected. Elsewhere, the Santa Catalina Island Co., which owns all of the developable property in town, is constructing a spa and plans to build an aquatic facility with three freshwater swimming pools, a community center and a hotel with more than 100 rooms.   (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Patrons walk through the Bluewater Grill as a cruise ship approaches the island. The restaurant replaced Armstrong’s Seafood and the building was remodeled.  (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Tourists look out at the landmark Casino in Avalon, which houses the current Catalina Island Museum. The museum, on the first floor of the structure, has a collection that includes Catalina landscape paintings, pottery, vintage photographs, archival documents and Native American artifacts dating back thousands of years. The museum has attracted record crowds with exhibits featuring the Beatles, Marilyn Monroe and the Chicago Cubs.   (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)