Bay Club memories

Young Chang

One of the greatest luxuries in the world, Paul Salata says, is the

privilege of shaving in a steam room every day. The stubble all but

glides off, and Salata almost never cuts himself.

The 6 O’Clockers know this luxury.

Every morning for the last 35 years, Salata and his early bird crew

have gathered at 6 a.m. at the Balboa Bay Club’s men’s spa to shave,

shower, play cards, work out and start their day together. They call

themselves the 6 O’Clockers. Some arrive as early as 4 a.m. They get

bridge games going as soon as enough people show.

Somebody always brings doughnuts to accompany the Bay Club’s coffee,

cocoa and tea buffet. Salata munches away in the dimly lighted spa lounge

as he first reads his Daily Pilot, then the Register, the Los Angeles

Times, the Wall Street Journal and finally USA Today.

The papers are left in a huge, messy pile resembling, probably, the

mound in your home.

But that’s just how comfortable members of the 52-year-old Bay Club

feel here.

That routine will soon experience a little bump when the Bay Club

closes its kitchen and spa to prepare for the opening of the new

clubhouse Oct. 2. The old clubhouse will be demolished soon after the

opening.

Nostalgia is building as the Bay Club nears the final Sunday brunch in

its old space, and longtime members are digging up their favorite Bay

Club memories.

“I think it’s very much a part of Newport Beach,” owner Beverly Ray

said. “Part of the lifestyle of this area, casual and the perennial

summer time.”

REMEMBER WHEN?

The memories go way back to when two gentlemen named Tom Henderson and

Hadd Rigg bought 26.58 acres of waterfront property in 1946 that had been

used, until then, as a naval dumping ground for equipment.

Previously, the land was part of the Santa Ana Army Air base, where

service men came to lounge.

Ken Kendall, a Newport Beach resident, bought part of the property

from Rigg and came up with the idea to build a private beach club in

1948. The faces that have hung out there since make up an all-star list.

John Wayne was a regular and eventually a governor of the club. He

lived next door and walked in wearing soft denim shirts and slacks for

his tequila at the bar. He often anchored his boat at the opposite side

of Lido Isle because it was too big for the Bay Club. He’d ride in on a

dinghy.

Wayne would talk to everyone who dined around him, and yet he kept his

bigger than life screen charisma, Ray said.

Ray’s late husband, Bill, took over the club in 1971 as the fourth

owner.

Humphrey Bogart lounged at the club, so did Lauren Bacall. Greta Garbo

visited, Jack Benny did too, and Andy Devine, William Holden, Bing

Crosby, Bob Hope and Walter Matthau added to the star-studded reputation

of the waterfront hangout.

Politicians including former Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater and Richard

Nixon joined the mix too. Bay Club history has it that during the Cold

War in the late 1960s, Nixon’s delegation was hooked up with “red phones”

that provided direct connections from the club to Washington, D.C., and

Moscow.

Ronald and Nancy Reagan visited during their residency at the

governor’s mansion in Sacramento.

“I’ve met a lot of movie stars, kings and queens,” said George

Valenzuela, banquet captain at the club for 32 years. “I got excited all

the time.”

His photo album at home is filled with pictures taken with everyone

from Wayne and Bishop to King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. Valenzuela is

younger in these photos, the hair more plentiful and dark.

As the head maitre d’ and ever-constant presence at the club,

Valenzuela has shared countless bar mitzvahs, wedding rehearsals, holiday

parties, fund-raisers and business meetings with loyal regulars.

He walked the grounds this week, recounting the parties and laughs

that were shared in the various corners of the club. He was here when the

carpet was a yellow-blue pattern instead of the green it is today. He was

served by John Wayne and comedian Joey Bishop every Christmas when the

two celebrities hosted the annual employee holiday parties and turned the

tables on Valenzuela and his staff.

“For sure I’m gonna miss the old places,” he said. “This is history

for me. This is a nice place to be.”

WRECKING BALLS AND POWER BURGERS

Renovation plans are split into two phases. Phase one will be

completed with the opening of the new clubhouse next month. The

50,000-square-foot property will include new spas, a fitness facility, a

child-care center, a pro shop, lounges, a waterfront restaurant, a

beach-side pool, 28 guest rooms and a parking garage.

Phase two of the $63-million renovation will begin immediately after

Oct. 2 with the demolition of the existing clubhouse and construction of

a new hotel in its place. The three-story structure will hold two

restaurants, a ballroom, a pool and 131 guest rooms built in an Italian

Renaissance architectural style.

Members acknowledge that it’s time for some fixing up, as much as they

love their backyard club. Ray even admits that when her husband took over

the property and she visited, for the first time, the legendary Balboa

Bay Club she had heard so much about, she was a bit surprised.

“It was kind of shabby and worn down, very well-used,” she said

gently. “It’s kinda been always the lifestyle there -- everybody goes

there, has fun, uses it. I think, even though there were many elegant

yacht clubs here and elegant people as well, I think there was just that

summertime-fun feeling of it all the time.”

Salata, a Newport Beach resident and founder of Mr. Irrelevant Week,

agrees. Not that the club is second rate, he insists, but it’s less fancy

and more “homey.”

“It was convenient,” said the member of 30 years. “You had full

service, had everything going, had a nice, comfortable staff. And they

kind of localized it.”

Jim Warsaw, 53, held his sons’ bar mitzvahs there about 15 years ago.

He remembers how maitre d’s named Hannah and Sheryl hosted him in for

lunch. Servers Tommy and May waited on him.

His children kayaked on the beach during the summer and swam in the

kiddie pools too. And after rigorous laps in the water or even just

aimless play, the family indulged in the Bay Club’s trademark Power

Burgers.

They were grilled outside in a little wooden beach hut and they were

huge, Salata remembers -- stuffed with grilled onions and Ortega chili,

various sauces and cheese, if it was a cheeseburger. Members still relish

how these burgers went so well with a Cobb salad on the side after hours

of exhausting laps.

“The [kids] worked out here, and it was convenient to be on the beach

and be able to eat and spend the day,” Salata said.

RAFTS AND PARTIES

Barbara Bowie, a Newport Beach resident and longtime member, remembers

the thrill of making it out to the raft as a child. The 15-by-20-foot

wooden plank about 50 feet out in the ocean holds a water slide today. It

was no small feat for a child to make it that far.

“There was a diving board on the raft,” Bowie said. “And as a teenager

it was fun for the teenagers to swim out there and sunbathe on the raft

while the boys came out and dove.”

As an adult, she and her husband, Alex, held their wedding rehearsal

dinner at the club’s main banquet hall 45 years ago. As a young, married

couple, the Bowies were regular faces at the club’s parties, including

the Tahitian ones around the pool.

“The men walked over the plank, which was over the swimming pool,” she

said.

Catherine Thyen, also a longtime member, sighs remembering the galas.

“The parties,” she said. “The best parties. You walk into any room

where a party was being held and you felt you were among friends right

away. Even if you didn’t know everyone, you got to know them right away.”

Salata, 75, still appreciates his surprise 50th birthday bash at the

club. He remembers a neighbor suggesting that they go for a casual harbor

cruise that evening. They arrived at the club, about 200 guests --

including politicians, athletes, neighbors and business associates --

greeted him and the party pumped on for “hours and hours” while mariachi

and big bands kept the mood swinging.

“It was one of eight days of parties,” he said. “But it was very

special.”

His favorite memories, though, are of the Bay Club’s sports hall of

fame. Portraits of Greg Louganis, Reggie Jackson, Jerry West, George

Yardley, Mickey Mantle and other famous athletes hung on the walls.

Banquets were held to induct new faces.

“But in the last 10 years, the hall of fame has been just canceled,”

said Salata, also a governor at the club. “It just got cumbersome.

Management thought it was more trouble that it was worth.”

BOYS WILL BE BOYS

Today, the Bay Club’s membership is about 3,000. When the club first

opened in 1948, it’s said that officials used to stand on the highway and

give away free hot dogs to elicit people to join. Membership then was

about $50. Today, the one-time initiation fee is $7,500 for a family

(doesn’t matter what size), $2,000 for a junior and $4,500 for a single

person. This is in addition to monthly dues, which are $150 a month for

families.

In the ‘50s and ‘60s, the clientele was more intimate and exclusive.

Newport Beach’s population was tighter and all the kids who grew up at

the club got to know each other like family. But since the ‘70s, the city

has grown with newcomers and so has the membership.

“But that’s part of what we do here,” Ray said. “With new members’

parties . . . we try to bring the club together that way.”

Facing the changes to come with the new clubhouse and hotel, members

say they’re nostalgic and grateful for the good times had, but too

excited to be even remotely sad.

“We have to move on,” Bowie said. “The excitement and looking forward

to the new facilities far out shadow the nostalgia.”

Salata just hopes the new men’s spa will still feel like home. The

whir of at least three washers and four dryers spinning every morning to

accommodate the 6 O’Clockers with the spa’s 110 towels, the stock market

watching and tall tale telling -- none of this will probably change.

Neither will the camaraderie nor the coffee-drinking.

Salata plans to do his part to make himself at home in the new spa.

“They guaranteed us that there’d be a place for us,” he said. “We’re

hoping that the informality and the fraternization will remain the same.

It’s gonna be a little more formal, but we will be just as bad as we are

now.”