Heritage Committee hosts Laguna Artists’ Studio Trolley Tour

On Saturday, May 20, local art-lovers and Laguna history buffs were treated to an intimate trolley tour throughout Laguna, as part of the city’s month-long Heritage Month celebration.

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Photo by Hunter Fuentes

All aboard! Participants rode the trolley to tour artists’ homes, studios and historic buildings around the community.

Participants learned about many of Laguna’s founding artists’ homes and studios as well as other historic buildings. Design-builder professional and Heritage committee member Clark Collins, former mayor and landscape architect Ann Christoph and tour guide Bill Hoffman of Hoffy Tours served as very knowledgeable guides. They shared an informative 90 minutes of facts, urban myths and local lore to the delight of the participants. Laguna’s art and architecture form the fabric of the city’s earliest development, and today continue to lure patrons of the arts to explore its fabled landscape and the artwork inspired by it.

Here is a glimpse of a few historic homes/buildings on the tour.

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Courtesy of the Heritage Committee

Malcolm St. Clair’s house at 489 Pearl St. He worked for Warner Bros. as a location director during the silent film era.

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Courtesy of the Heritage Committee

Nell Walker Warner’s house at 429 Shadow Lane. She was an American artist known for her California and Western landscapes.

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Courtesy of the Heritage Committee

Cope house at 412 Glenneyre St. With its unique architectural design, it utilizes an irregular floor plan and a multi-gabled roof.

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Courtesy of the Heritage Committee

Donna Schuster’s home/studio is located at 559 Thalia St.

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Courtesy of the Heritage Committee

Laguna Beach Water District building is located at 306 3rd St. Built in 1927, when the City of Laguna Beach was newly incorporated, it also accommodated city personnel until 1952. The architect was Aubrey St. Clair, son of Malcolm St. Clair.

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Courtesy of the Heritage Committee

Isaac Frazee’s home/studio is located at 495 El Bosque (“forest”). Located close to Downtown in the El Mirador neighborhood, it was the first subdivision in Laguna Beach.

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Courtesy of the Heritage Committee

The second main post office on Broadway and Beach streets was built in 1938. Of Mediterranean revival style in a rectangular footprint, stucco siding and red-tiled gable roof, as traffic Downtown grew its location posed access issues, so it served the city only through the mid-1940s.

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Courtesy of the Heritage Committee

The Digester Building, located near City Hall, now serves as a storage facility for the Laguna Beach Police Department. Constructed in 1935, it served as part of a comprehensive sewer system to protect local beaches from contamination.

For more information about the City of Laguna Beach’s Heritage Committee and to learn more about historic preservation, go here.