The Catalina Casino is a large gathering facility located in

Avalon Avalon (; la, Insula Avallonis; cy, Ynys Afallon, Ynys Afallach; kw, Enys Avalow; literally meaning "the isle of fruit r appletrees"; also written ''Avallon'' or ''Avilion'' among various other spellings) is a mythical island featured in the ...

on Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. It is the largest building on the island and the most visible landmark in Avalon Bay when approaching the island from the mainland. The large building contains a movie theater, ballroom, and formerly an island art and

history museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

.Catalina Island Museum
/ref> The Catalina Casino gets its name from the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

and/or

Italian language Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about ...

term ''casino'', meaning a "gathering place" or establishment used for social interactions and sometimes shows and dances. Contrary to the current common English usage of the word ''

casino A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertai ...

'', this has never been a facility for

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...

.Visitcatalinaisland.com: Catalina Casino
/ref>

History

The Catalina Casino was built on a site formerly known as Sugarloaf Point. The site was graded for the planned construction of the Hotel St. Catherine, which was instead eventually built in Descanso Canyon. When chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. bought the controlling stake in Catalina Island in 1919, he used this cleared site to build a dance hall he named Sugarloaf Casino. It served as a ballroom and Avalon's first high school, until it became too small for Avalon's growing population. In 1928, the Sugarloaf was razed to make room for a newer casino building. Sugarloaf Rock was further blasted away to enhance the Casino's ocean view. On May 29, 1929, the new Catalina Casino was completed under the direction of Wrigley and David M. Renton, at a cost of $2 million. Its design, by

Sumner Spaulding Sumner Spaulding (1892–1952) was an American architect and city planner. He is best known for designing the Harold Lloyd Estate, Greenacres, in Beverly Hills, California, the Catalina Casino in Avalon on Santa Catalina Island, California, and ...

and Walter Weber, is in the

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

and Mediterranean Revival styles. The casino's movie theater was the first to be designed specifically for films with sound ("talkies"). It received the Honor Award from the California Chapter of the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

, as "one of the outstanding architectural accomplishments". With a height equal to a 12-story building, it was built to serve as a theater on the main floor and a ballroom and promenade on the upper level. Movie studio moguls such as

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 cine ...

Louis B. Mayer Louis Burt Mayer (; born Lazar Meir; July 12, 1882 or 1884 or 1885 – October 29, 1957) was a Canadian-American film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios (MGM) in 1924. Under Mayer's management, MGM became the film industr ...

, and

Samuel Goldwyn Samuel Goldwyn (born Szmuel Gelbfisz; yi, שמואל געלבפֿיש; August 27, 1882 (claimed) January 31, 1974), also known as Samuel Goldfish, was a Polish-born American film producer. He was best known for being the founding contributor an ...

frequently came by yacht to the Casino to preview their newest cinema productions. It also serves as the island's civil defense shelter, large enough to accommodate Catalina's entire year-round population. Within its walls is stored enough food and water for all Avalon's residents for two weeks. The steel structure of the predecessor Sugarloaf Casino can still be found in Avalon's abandoned bird park. The bird park was conceived by Mrs. Wrigley in the 1930s, and at the time it was one of the largest

aviaries An aviary is a large enclosure for confining birds, although bats may also be considered for display. Unlike birdcages, aviaries allow birds a larger living space where they can fly; hence, aviaries are also sometimes known as flight cages. Avi ...

in the world. In 1993, the movie theater was photographed by Hiroshi Sugimoto for his art series "Theatres". In 1994, the theater underwent a $750,000 restoration that reupholstered all of its seats and cleaned its murals. In September 2008, the Catalina Casino had the first live full production of a musical on its stage, when the Santa Catalina Island Company presented ''Grease!''. In December 2019, The Catalina Island Company stopped screening first run showings of movies, essentially ceasing its function as a traditional film venue. They cite the rise of streaming services and large use of

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna comm ...

in the small town of 4000 as contributing factors to the theater's low attendance. However, the theater remain available for daily tours and special events such as the Catalina Film Festival and Silent Film Benefit.

Structure

Surrounded by sea on three sides, the circular structure of the Catalina Casino is the equivalent of 12 stories tall. It has a movie theater on the first level and a ballroom on the top level. The building interiors were decorated in the

style, including with

sterling silver Sterling silver is an alloy of silver containing 92.5% by weight of silver and 7.5% by weight of other metals, usually copper. The sterling silver standard has a minimum millesimal fineness of 925. '' Fine silver'', which is 99.9% pure silver, i ...

and gold-leaf accents.

Movie theater

The Avalon Theatre is a movie theater on the first level, with a

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

of 1,154.Visitcatalinaisland.com: Avalon Theater
/ref> It has a single massive screen.Visitcatalinaisland.com: Avalon Theater walking tour
/ref> The theater has its original 4-manual, 16 rank pipe organ built by the Page Organ Company of Lima, Ohio. The theater is sound insulated so that patrons do not hear the band or up to 3,000 dancers in the ballroom above. The circular domed ceiling has notable acoustics and has been studied by acoustical designers, due to its repute. A speaker on the theater stage can speak in a normal voice without a microphone and be heard clearly by all in attendance. The theater's interior walls retain the original

murals by John Gabriel Beckman. The theater's entrance loggia, located between the two wings housing the ramps, feature nine mural panels of an Art Deco-style underwater world scene. In 1986, the center mural, depicting a mermaid, was restored using hand-painted tiles as originally envisioned. The restoration was with replications of Beckman's design created in Catalina Pottery-style tiles. The lobby has walnut

wood paneling Panelling (or paneling in the U.S.) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity to make roo ...

Ballroom

The upper-level houses the 20,000-square-foot Catalina Casino Ballroom. It is the world's largest circular ballroom, with a diameter dance floor that can accommodate 3,000 dancers. French doors encircle the room connecting the dance floor with the Romance Promenade, an open balcony that runs around the building. To reach the ballroom on the top level, the Casino building has two ramped walkways, both in enclosed towers that extend out from the circular building. Wrigley took the idea to use ramps instead of stairs from

Wrigley Field Wrigley Field is a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghman's Chicago ...

, his Chicago Cubs stadium. The ramps allowed the large numbers of people using the ballroom to quickly move to and from their destinations. They each have a small lobby area just below the dance floor level.

Catalina Island Museum

In 1953, Philip K. Wrigley established the Catalina Island Museum on the first level, to preserve the history of the island from the

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, ...

indigenous

Tongva The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . Some descendants of the people prefer Kizh as an endonym that, they argue, is more historically ...

(''Gabrielino'') peoples through the pre-war 20th-century development by his father. The museum featured a large and comprehensive collection of original Catalina Pottery ceramics, produced by Catalina Clay Products between 1927 and 1937. On June 18, 2016, the museum relocated to a new building, located approximately one half mile from its original location in the Catalina Casino. The Ada Blanche Wrigley Schreiner Building is located at 217 Metropole Avenue. The museum continues documenting Catalina Island history, adding from

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

to the present day, and a research institute. It is the repository for all archeological digs on the island, and has one of the largest collections of Tongva artifacts in the world. There are now more than 10,000 photographs and negatives documenting island life from the early 1880s until the present day in the museum's photography collection.

In popular culture

* The Casino figures in the 1935 film Murder on a Honeymoon. * A portion of the 1974 film '' Chinatown'' was filmed on Catalina Island, featuring cinematic shots of the Casino. * In 1984, Catalina Island and the Casino were filming locations for the ''

Airwolf ''Airwolf'' is an American action military drama television series that centers on a high-technology military helicopter, code-named ''Airwolf'', and its crew. The show follows them as they undertake various exotic missions, many involving e ...

'' episode "Sins of the Past". A replica of the Casino was set ablaze in the episode. * After players complete the 2020 action-adventure video game ''

The Last of Us Part II ''The Last of Us Part II'' is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. Set five years after ''The Last of Us'' (2013), the game focuses on two playable chara ...

'', the main menu screen changes to a beachfront with a rowboat in the foreground and the Casino in the background, implying that Abby has finally reached the Casino to reunite with her former group. * The theater is featured in Episode 12005 of ''

California's Gold ''California's Gold'' is a public television human interest program that explores the natural, cultural, and historical features of California. The series ran for 24 seasons beginning in 1991, and was produced and hosted by Huell Howser in colla ...

'' with Huell Howser.

References

External links

{{commons category, Catalina Casino
Santa Catalina Island Company: official ''Catalina Casino'' website

Catalina Island Museum
– ''formerly located in the Catalina Casino''.
Cinematreasures.org: Avalon Theatre
– ''article by movie theatre preservation organization''. *Casino Point Dive Park - ''dive park located at the base of the casino.'' Santa Catalina Island (California) Ballrooms in the United States Theatres in Los Angeles County, California Buildings and structures in the Channel Islands of California Buildings and structures in Los Angeles County, California Museums in Los Angeles County, California History museums in California Theatres completed in 1929 1929 establishments in California Event venues established in 1929 Tourist attractions in Los Angeles County, California Art Deco architecture in California Mediterranean Revival architecture in California Cinemas and movie theaters in Los Angeles County, California Public venues with a theatre organ