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Overview

Los Angeles architects Aleck Curlett (1881-1942) and Claud Beelman (188401963) designed this Italian Romanesque Revival Style building for the Citizens Mortgage Company, which leased many of the upper floors originally to the Commercial Club of Los Angeles. (This was Los Angeles's first clubhouse of the Commercial Club which operated facilities in other cities.) The Commercial Club and Citizens Mortgage had worked with other architects in 1924 planning building projects that were not realized. According to the Los Angeles Times in 07/1925, "J. Ward Cohen, organizer of the Commercial Club of Southern California, has been instrumental in the past seven months in negotiations concerning the deal." He worked with Clare Woolwine, President of the Citizens Mortgage Company and W.G. Lane of the Lane Mortgage Company, who financed the deal. Citizens Mortgage was the deed holder on the building loan.

The Commercial Club contracted with Citizens Mortgage in 07/1925 to lease space in the new Curlett and Beelman building.

Building History

The Commercial Club would occupy much of the building at its outset. The Los Angeles Times described the internal configuration of the new highrise: "It will be finished in terra cotta and brick with a spacious club lobby facing Broadway on the ground floor. The third floor will include the offices, lounges, billiard-room, card-room, grill and check-room while the main dining room, and kitchen will be a private dining room seating 125 persons. 'Cercle des Dames,'the women's fifth floor...will be complete in itself. A completely equipped gymnasium and Turkish bath will be on the sixth floor. The main plunge, private locker-rooms, lockers, athletic offices, instructors' rooms and barber shop will be on the seventh floor. The next six floors will be used for sleeping purposes. Each of these floors will have twenty-nine rooms, making a total of 126 rooms. Each room will have either shower or bath and an outside exposure."

Curlett and Beelman worked with the Philadelphia-based Scofield Construction Company on the construction of the Commercial Club. Scofield operated a CA subsidiary, the Pacific Marine and Construction Company, that did a great deal of work on the West Coast.

In 12/2013, a small syndicate of buyers composed of real estate developers Frank Stork, Channing Henry and the Kor Group (led byBrad Korzen)bought the 13-story tower at 1100-1106 South Broadway for $13.5 million. The group sought to transform the former Commercial Club/Case Hotel into a high-end boutique hotel.

Building Notes

The Commercial Club had a street frontage of 72 feet, 10 inches, facing South Broadway and extended 110 feet, 10 inches, back to an alleyway congruent to East 11th Street.

The YWCA of Greater Los Angeles also occupied space in this 107,000-square-foot skycraper.