Join Preservation Next for tours of the Herald Examiner and Proper Hotel.
1111 S Broadway Los Angeles, CA 90015
Wednesday, May 28 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Our next Preservation Next event is on May 28th, 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. We are inviting 40 emerging and mid-career preservationists for a two-tour event. Join us for Discover DTLA Broadway: Two Case Studies on Adaptive Reuse, where we’ll tour two prior Los Angeles Conservancy Preservation Award Winners.
Our first stop is the Julia Morgan-designed Herald Examiner building. This local landmark was the first large-scale project Morgan designed for William Randolph Hearst. The five-story building is located on Broadway and 11th, built in a mix of Spanish Colonial Revival and Mission Revival styles. The site hosted the Herald Examiner's newspaper offices until 1989, when it was scheduled for demolition. The Los Angeles Conservancy formed a Blue Ribbon Task Force and garnered public support for the building, halting demolition plans. In the decades after, the site served as a popular filming location. In 2016, the building was rehabilitated to adaptively reuse the former offices and production facility for multiple mixed-commercial tenants and catalyze the neighborhood's revitalization. The site re-opened in 2021 as Arizona State University's California Center.
Our second stop is the Proper Hotel, designed by master architects Alexander Curlett and Claud Beelman. The 13-story building was constructed in a Renaissance Revival style and adapted for commercial use. Built in 1926, the Commercial Club of Southern California served as the social annex of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. The social club attracted prominent Angelenos, including Harry Warner, Cecil B. DeMille, Moses Hamburger, theater operators, hoteliers, and more. The Club ceased operations in 1932 after the stock market crash of 1929. The site transformed several times afterward into the Cabrillo Hotel, then the Case Hotel. In 1965, the YWCA opened a short-term housing, job assistance, and rehabilitation facility that occupied the entire building until 2012. In 2013, the property was purchased by the KOR Group and Alma Development. The team ensured many original features remained intact, so the new Proper Hotel maintained as much of the original historic fabric as possible.
