The July 23, 2024 meeting of the Culver City Historical Society featured an outstanding program put together by the Society’s interns, Eve Mott and Maren Brown, on the history of the Culver Hotel. In honor of the hotel’s one hundredth birthday, the information was presented by Mott – Brown was out with a virus. Very well researched, they included interviews with the late Syd Kronenthal of the city’s PRCS Department (video from some years ago) and a tour of the hotel from the basement to the penthouse.
The Multi-purpose Room at the Vets Building was packed, with the standing-room-only crowd filling in at the edges of the seating. Mott spoke with a power-point presentation, taking a bright light to the many rumors that have surrounded the hotel for decades. No, Charlie Chaplin was never listed as an actual owner, but her may have been a ‘silent partner’ helping Harry Culver to finance the adventure; Culver lost the hotel in the Great Depression in 1933. Yes, John Wayne did own the hotel in partnership with his manager, Bo Roos, but there’s no evidence that he won it in a poker game. There is also no historic support for the idea of a ‘munchkin orgy’ during the filming of the Wizard of Oz, but there have been many sightings of the ghost of Harry Culver on the premises.
Like many presentations from Historical Society, this one filled in some gaps in the record, and offered documentation needed to correct misinformation.
The building originally known as “the Skyscraper” was first opened in 1924, and celebrating it’s centennial. The hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, cementing it’s title as a part of American History.
Judith Martin-Straw
