The Beverly Hills Women's Club is an historic house and social club in

Beverly Hills, California Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. B ...

.Caroline M. Roman
Beverly Hills Women's Club Holiday Tea with Tiffany & Co.
''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

'', January 05, 2011Beverly Hills files
/ref>Marc Wanamaker, ''Early Beverly Hills'', Arcadia Publishing, 2005, p. 7

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History

Beginnings

The club was founded in October 1916, and it served as a unit for the

American Red Cross The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the desi ...

during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

The clubhouse

In 1925, they raised US$4,000 at a horse show attended by the likes of

Hobart Bosworth Hobart Van Zandt Bosworth (August 11, 1867 – December 30, 1943) was an American film actor, director, writer, and producer. Early life Bosworth was born on August 11, 1867, in Marietta, Ohio. His father was a sea captain in the Civil Wa ...

Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films including '' The Thie ...

Mary Pickford Gladys Marie Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founde ...

, Stanley S. Anderson (owner of the

Beverly Hills Hotel The Beverly Hills Hotel, also called the Beverly Hills Hotel and Bungalows, is located on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California, Beverly Hills, California. One of the world's best-known hotels, it is closely associated with Cinema of the ...

), Cecilia DeMille (daughter of

Cecil B. DeMille Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American film director, producer and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cinem ...

Charles E. Toberman Charles Edward Toberman (February 23, 1880 – November 10, 1981) was a real estate developer and stenographer who developed landmarks in Hollywood, California, including the Hollywood Bowl, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, El Capitan Theatre, the ...

Silsby Spalding Silsby Spalding (May 29, 1886 – May 5, 1949) was an American businessman and politician. He served as the first Mayor of Beverly Hills, California from 1926 to 1928. Early life Silsby Morse Spalding was born on May 29, 1886 in Minneapolis, ...

(Mayor of Beverly Hills), and

Alphonzo Bell Alphonzo Edward Bell Sr. (September 29, 1875 – December 27, 1947) was an American oil multi-millionaire, real estate developer, philanthropist, and champion tennis player. The westside Los Angeles residential community of Bel Air is name ...

(developer of

Bel Air, California Bel Air (or Bel-Air) is a residential neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles, California, in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. Founded in 1923, it is the home of the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden and the American Jewish Universit ...

). Later that year, they used that money to move into the newly constructed clubhouse. The clubhouse is a one-story,

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

-clad

Spanish Colonial Revival The Spanish Colonial Revival Style ( es, Arquitectura neocolonial española) is an architectural stylistic movement arising in the early 20th century based on the Spanish Colonial architecture of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. In the ...

with a tiled hip roof. It features

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s, scrolled

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

, an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

topped by a

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

with a shield and urn motif surrounding the main door, and

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a cas ...

s. It was designed by the architectural team Gable & Wyant, who also designed Hangar One. The clubhouse has been listed on the

National Register of Historic Places listings in Los Angeles County, California __NOTOC__ This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Los Angeles County, California. This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles Cou ...

since October 4, 2006.

The social club

Early members, who rode horses to make their way to the club, included Mrs Burton E. Green and actress

Norma Shearer Edith Norma Shearer (August 11, 1902June 12, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress who was active on film from 1919 through 1942. Shearer often played spunky, sexually liberated ingénues. She appeared in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'N ...

. Special guests included

Amelia Earhart Amelia Mary Earhart ( , born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many oth ...

and

Gloria Swanson Gloria May Josephine Swanson (March 27, 1899April 4, 1983) was an American actress and producer. She first achieved fame acting in dozens of silent films in the 1920s and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, most f ...

. It sponsored the

Will Rogers William Penn Adair Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous social commentator. He was born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, in the Indian Territory (now part of Oklahoma ...

Horse Show and exhibited art such as

El Greco Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( el, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El G ...

's ''Saint Francis of Assisi'' and, in 2007, Roland Muri. In 1930, they created the

Electric Fountain The Electric Fountain is a water fountain with public art sculptures and evening lighting, surrounded by mosaic pavement, seating, and landscaping. It is located in Beverly Gardens Park on the corner of Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards in ...

in Beverly Hills through efforts from

Harold Lloyd Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, and stunt performer who appeared in many silent comedy films.Obituary ''Variety'', March 10, 1971, page 55. One of the most influential film co ...

's mother. In 1963, they published a

cookbook A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes. Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food. Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (appetizer, first cour ...

, ''Beverly Hills Women's Club Cook Book: Fashions in Food''. Recent guests include

Stephen J. Cannell Stephen Joseph Cannell (; February 5, 1941 – September 30, 2010) was an American television producer, writer, novelist, occasional actor, and founder of Cannell Entertainment (formerly Stephen J. Cannell Productions) and the Cannell Studios. ...

. The current President is Jill Tavelman, ex-wife of singer

Phil Collins Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and lead singer of the rock band Genesis and also has a career as a solo performer. Between 1982 and ...

and mother of actress

Lily Collins Lily Jane Collins (born 18 March 1989) is a British and American actress and model who is known for her work in several films, including ''Stuck in Love'' (2012), ''The English Teacher'' (2013), and '' Love, Rosie'' (2014), comedy ''Rules Do ...

References

{{Authority control Women's club buildings in California Buildings and structures in Beverly Hills, California Clubs and societies in California Women's clubs in the United States Clubhouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles Houses completed in 1925 Spanish Colonial Revival architecture in California Women in California