Restaurateur Paul Hennessey wants to revamp the landmark Lighthouse Café on the Pier Plaza, without disturbing the Spirit of Jazz Past.
Hennessey’s plans, now in a germinal form, would include converting what has been one of the West Coast’s seminal jazz spots from a “bar-nightclub” to a restaurant, and creating a partially open-air second floor above the establishment’s ground floor patio.
However, the brick-fronted building eight decades old is regarded as significant for its cultural history, so any changes must be made without disturbing the ghosts of Miles Davis and Chet Baker, or the legacies of Buddy Guy, Howard Rumsey and his Lighthouse All-Stars.
The Hermosa Beach Planning Commission was set to discuss the possible overhaul this month, when officials determined that state law requires an analysis of the building as a cultural and historical asset before changes can be made.
The analysis, which might include a detailed environmental impact report, is expected to take several months.
An outline of the plan for the Lighthouse, which sits in limbo in a City Hall cabinet, calls for conversion of the establishment from a “bar-nightclub” to a restaurant, with “patio dining” on two levels, and reduced hours.
The plans, that might undergo significant changes, would call for increasing the floor area from 4,026 square feet to 4,788 square feet.
The plans state that the Lighthouse would not have to provide for additional parking, because restaurants have lower city parking requirements than do bars or nightclubs.
The Lighthouse would continue to serve liquor, beer and wine, and would retain live entertainment and dancing.
Patrons could dine on the ground-floor patio, or on a second floor with a patio-like feel, which might be open in the front, and would have skylights in the roof to increase the open-air feeling.
The kitchen would be expanded, and a partial third floor would be added at the rear of the building, not for customer seating, but to house an employees’ room and equipment for air conditioning and utilities.
“It will be something big, we just don’t know exactly what it will be,” said Ashley Pacheco of Kelly Architects inLos Angeles.
She said one goal is to make the face of the Lighthouse more eye-catching.
She also stressed the preliminary nature of the plans.
“We’re in early design talks with the [city] Planning Commission,” she said. “We’re months away from doing anything.”
The Lighthouse is home to various kinds of music, but it has been famous for decades, beginning in the 1940s, for live jazz and live-from-the-Lighthouse jazz recordings.
Recordings include “Sunday Jazz a la Lighthouse” by Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse All-Stars and “Witch Doctor” by Chet Baker and the Lighthouse All-Stars in the 1950s, “At the Lighthouse by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, “Tippin’ on Through by Curtis Amy, “The Jazz Crusaders at the Lighthouse,” “ Live at the Lighthouse ‘66 by the Jazz Crusaders, and “Live at the Lighthouse” by the Three Sounds in the 1960s, and albums in the 1970s called “Live at the Lighthouse” by Lee Morgan, Grant Green and Elvin Jones.
