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.”
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