Café remodeling scaled back
A sweeping remodel of the Lighthouse Café, once a seminal West Coast jazz venue, was within days of Planning Commission approval when it was discovered that the city officially considers the venerable brick building a potential historic resource. George Kelly, owner of the Los Angeles firm Kelly Architects, credited City Attorney Michael Jenkins with the timely discovery, which prompted a rethinking of the remodeling. As a result, the brick exterior of the Lighthouse, an eight-decade-old building on the Pier Plaza, will undergo little change in the conversion from a “bar-nightclub” to a restaurant. “It won’t look new” from the outside, Kelly said. From the start, restaurateur Paul Hennessey was determined to preserve the building’s cultural significance, and the discovery of the Lighthouse’s official status with the city prompted a lengthy historical review, resulting in even fewer changes to the exterior. “We said, whoa, slow down,” Kelly said. “Paul Hennessey was all about celebrating the history” of the Lighthouse, which houses the echoes of Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Buddy Guy, and Howard Rumsey and his Lighthouse All-Stars. The previous tentative plan had called for the…
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