Mudslide at Ocean House

 United States > California > Los Angeles County > Santa Monica

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A winter storm caused a landslide on the cliffs overlooking US Highway 101A at Ocean House (not shown), the former home of Marion Davies. Barricades mark off the mudslide as it encroaches onto the roadway. Photo dated: Jan. 18, 1952.Ocean House, 415 Palisades Beach Road, was completed in 1928, for Marion Davies (1897-1961), the openly accepted mistress of media mogul William Randolph Hearst. She bought 5-acres literally on Santa Monica Beach and then employed William Flannery (a set designer in Los Angeles) to build her a beach house with a guest house, staff house and two further houses. In 1926, Hearst also brought in his architect of choice, Julia Morgan - the first woman to be granted an architect's license in California - and connected up the houses before enlarging it as a whole to 110-rooms (many historically themed) on which $4 million was spent on the furnishings alone. For 20-years, it was a mecca for movie stars and was known as, "The Versailles of Hollywood".