Building Restorations

During the 1930s and '40s, Jack Benny, Lucille Ball and Rita Hayworth were just a few of the major Hollywood celebrities who stopped in for meals at Daniger's Tea Room, located on the second floor of the historic Santora Building in downtown Santa Ana.

Trying to reverse its low grades from the flying public, Los Angeles International Airport marked a milestone in its modernization program Tuesday by dedicating a $238-million renovation of one of its aging passenger terminals. The remodel of Terminal 6, the new home of Alaska Airlines, includes a variety of improvements to bag check, ticketing, security screening, waiting areas at gates and more. "The whole thing is designed with the customer in mind," said Bill Ayer, Alaska's chief executive, who attended the terminal's grand opening.

Bodybuilders at the world-famous patch of Venice known as Muscle Beach are bent out of shape. After more than a year of renovation, the outdoor gym celebrated its reopening this week with a party for politicians and weightlifters. There was jazz, free food, and a chance to pump pecs and show big guns for the media (that's Muscle Beach lingo for flexing and flaunting massive upper-body musculature).

Atop a bluff in Pacific Palisades, the iconic home finished in 1949 by Charles and Ray Eames has been cared for lovingly by their descendants. Few houses have been left intact for so long, let alone one that provides such insight into the history of California design. But six decades is a long time in the life of any house, and realizing the difference between loving care and preservation, the Eames family is launching a campaign to preserve the house, and all that it contains.

Trying to reverse its low grades from the flying public, Los Angeles International Airport marked a milestone in its modernization program Tuesday by dedicating a $238-million renovation of one of its aging passenger terminals. The remodel of Terminal 6, the new home of Alaska Airlines, includes a variety of improvements to bag check, ticketing, security screening, waiting areas at gates and more. "The whole thing is designed with the customer in mind," said Bill Ayer, Alaska's chief executive, who attended the terminal's grand opening.

Atop a bluff in Pacific Palisades, the iconic home finished in 1949 by Charles and Ray Eames has been cared for lovingly by their descendants. Few houses have been left intact for so long, let alone one that provides such insight into the history of California design. But six decades is a long time in the life of any house, and realizing the difference between loving care and preservation, the Eames family is launching a campaign to preserve the house, and all that it contains.

An official proposal for renovation of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, unveiled Tuesday, raises a strong possibility that the University of Southern California football team will play its 1993 home games in Anaheim Stadium, officials said. The renovation would maintain many of the Coliseum's historic features and traditional sight lines while adding state-of-the-art luxury suites, club seating and a 19-row upper deck.

When George and Barbara Bush lived in Santa Fe Gardens, the sprawling apartment complex in Compton provided clean, affordable housing within minutes of downtown Los Angeles and the Long Beach Harbor. That was 1949, before the apartments became condominiums and before those were purchased by absentee slumlords. Now Santa Fe Gardens is a dull-brown maze of boarded windows, squatters and fear. Crack cocaine, gunfire and prostitution are all too familiar, residents say. But Compton Mayor Walter R.

Tim Barney, chief of the Big Bear Lake Building Department, is awaiting winter at this mountain resort with trepidation. Only when the snow piles up on the roofs of homes and businesses will the full extent of damage from the June 28 earthquake be revealed, he fears. "We had snow collapses last year resulting from normal decay," Barney said. "But the quake certainly put additional stress on critical joints, it fractured dry walls, and often the damage is not all that visible.

Bishop H.H. Brookins on Saturday disputed the findings of city investigators that he used $336,000 in federal poverty funds to renovate a dilapidated building that he secretly owned in Southwest Los Angeles.

Nearly 100 years of being battered by the waves, winds and rain, to say nothing of the sea gulls, have taken its toll on the Angels Gate Lighthouse at the entrance to Los Angeles Harbor. The paint is peeling and its iron walls have rusted. The cornice has pulled away and hangs sadly. Inside the 73-foot-tall lighthouse, portions of the floor have rotted where water seeped in. "That's your first impression if you're traveling by sea to Los Angeles," said businessman Gary Dwight.

Hoping to halt the conversion of the Fairfax Theater into apartments, neighbors joined preservationists and community activists Saturday to collect petition signatures and to celebrate the cinema's 80th birthday. "We view the Fairfax not only as a historic treasure, but as a social and cultural treasure, given the role it has played in the Fairfax District for the past 80 years," said Hillsman Wright, co-founder of the Los Angeles Historical Theatre Foundation. "It's much more than a physical structure," he said.

The Petit Trianon, the mini-chateau at Versailles that French queen Marie Antoinette used as her refuge, reopened Wednesday after a yearlong, $7.34-million renovation funded by Swiss watchmaker Breguet, which once made a timepiece for the queen. Among other improvements, electric wiring was fixed, more rooms opened to the public and a garden pavilion refurbished. Curators said they wanted to avoid a stuffy museum feel, making it seem as though the 18th century French queen and her entourage had just stepped away for a moment.

Elizabeth Brubaker strode up to a boarded-up abandoned home in Lancaster's Piute neighborhood and enthusiastically rattled off the city's plan to fix it up. "We'll go from asphalt to concrete," said Brubaker, Lancaster's director of housing and neighborhood revitalization, as she gestured toward the driveway. "We'll do hardscape out front, so that we're not utilizing water. But we're going to leave in the trees. We'll eliminate the wood siding and do block walls. And we'll put in a roll-up garage."

Until recently, the golden cherubs and embellished pillars lining the walls of the Westlake Theatre swap meet meant little more than a fancy backdrop for Virginia Anaya and her busy vitamin and makeup business. This was the place where, decades earlier, Charlie Chaplin delighted audiences and Los Angeles' elite, the residents of the district's Spanish-style mansions and high-rise homes, gathered to relax with an evening of theater. Today, it is where Anaya sells laxatives and eye shadow to make a living.

There was new appreciation for old construction Tuesday when fledgling architectural preservationists got a close-up look at one of Pasadena's most venerable landmarks. Veteran restoration experts revealed to building design students the painstaking steps they took to maintain the integrity of the 100-year-old Gamble House during a recent cellar-to-rooftop renovation.

Nearly 100 years of being battered by the waves, winds and rain, to say nothing of the sea gulls, have taken its toll on the Angels Gate Lighthouse at the entrance to Los Angeles Harbor. The paint is peeling and its iron walls have rusted. The cornice has pulled away and hangs sadly. Inside the 73-foot-tall lighthouse, portions of the floor have rotted where water seeped in. "That's your first impression if you're traveling by sea to Los Angeles," said businessman Gary Dwight.

City officials say the time has come to give the historic city gym and pool a $2-million make-over to recapture its original glory. "It's been in need of restoration for a number of years," said Jim Engle, community services deputy director. "It's a remarkable building and it's needed for our community. It's part of our history and recreation." Built in 1931, the facility at 17th Street and Palm Avenue is home to the only indoor gym and pool operated by the city.

Developer Wayne Ratkovich had little idea 30 years ago when he and his partners bought an unwanted office building in downtown Los Angeles that a forgotten gem lay waiting. The office market at the time was hot for glass and steel towers, and to hell with the old piles such as the Art Deco-style James Oviatt Building. The former UCLA football player in his 30s wasn't sure exactly what "Art Deco" encompassed. What he uncovered was an architectural treasure that he proceeded to bring back to life.

Germany's largest synagogue, featuring golden mosaic tiles and a star-spangled blue dome, reopened Friday after more than a year of renovations to restore its beauty following decades of neglect. Rabbi Chaim Rozwaski praised the synagogue's revival as "a miracle" to a crowd that packed the temple, which can hold more than 1,000 people. "We have come back from death to life," he said at the service kicking off Berlin's annual 10-day Jewish culture festival.