1924-1926 Hollywood Athletic Club 6525 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

The first vision of the Hollywood Athletic Club, on Sunset Boulevard came to its founders in 1921, when there was a need for a club in which businessmen could meet and lunch as well as develop their minds and bodies through physical exercise. The idea was born when Frank K. Galloway and George Moore were lunching at Sam Kress’ drugstore. Frank suggested that George start such a club. George called a meeting in the basement of the old library building.  As a result, the Hollywood Athletic Club was formed. The outcome of this conclave was the proposal that memberships are sold and the funds be used to purchase a site and build a clubhouse. To accomplish this end, George Moore and Clarence Huron incorporated the Hollywood Finance Company and undertook to sell memberships, first at a nominal cost, but as the idea found favor, at a greatly increased price. Through the efforts of the club’s officers, a deal was struck for the purchase of a site on the northeast corner of Sunset Boulevard at Hudson Avenue. Plans for a large clubhouse were then drawn. The construction of the building and the furnishing and equipping of the facilities required the combined efforts of the various club committees. When the nine-story building was completed in late 1923, by Meyer & Holler, the same architectural firm that built the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Egyptian Theatre.  At the time the club was the tallest building in Hollywood. The club had famous film stars of the day such as Johnny Weissmuller, Errol Flynn, Charlie Chaplain, John Wayne, Disney, John Ford, Douglas Fairbanks Sr, Mary Pickford, Cecil B de Mille, Cornel Wilde, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Frances X. Bushman, Howard Hughes, Joan Crawford, Rudolph Valentino, Buster Crabbe and Pola Negri.  Club Membership was originally $150 for initiation fees and $10 for monthly dues. Hollywood boasted of having the most modern and envied athletic club in the country. Some of the appointments included such features as a billiard room with six billiard tables, a twenty-five yard indoor swimming pool, a large gymnasium, spacious lounging rooms, library, mens’ and women’s’ locker rooms, barbershop, cigar store, haberdashery, and rooms and apartments for bachelor members. The club was so popular that by 1926, it had close to one thousand members. In addition to the many activities for its own members, the Hollywood Athletic Club sponsored teams in basketball, wrestling, track, tennis, swimming, boxing, squash, handball, water polo and fencing. Even though the club was built primarily for use by men, the wives and daughters of the members were: not lost sight of for one moment. Gymnasium and swimming classes were held regularly, thus providing the women with a complete physical education program. For more than thirty years, the Hollywood Athletic Club had been the inspiration and medium for physical development of its members and the home for numerous service clubs and civic organizations responsible for the development of Hollywood