La Monica Ballroom
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| (1926)* - Looking out toward the Municipal Pier and Santa Monica Amusement Pier showing the beautiful Spanish and French Renaissance-style La Monica Ballroom. |
Historical Notes Opened in July 1924 and designed by amusement architect T.H. Eslick, the La Monica Ballroom quickly became one of the most iconic dance venues on the West Coast. With domed corner towers and curvilinear gables, it evoked a seaside palace hovering above the waves. |
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| (1926)* - Colorized view of the Santa Monica Pier, showing the La Monica Ballroom with its dramatic domed towers rising above the waves. Photo by C.C. Pierce; colorization by Richard Holoff. |
Historical Notes This enhanced photo captures the exotic silhouette of the La Monica Ballroom, whose rooftop minarets and arches made it a standout along the coastline. The ballroom could accommodate up to 5,000 dancers on its massive maplewood floor, drawing crowds nightly in the 1920s. |
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| (1924)* - Early aerial looking east over the Santa Monica Pier, showing the Whirlwind Dipper, Looff Hippodrome, and the La Monica Ballroom nearing completion at the pier’s end. |
Historical Notes This 1924 photo shows the Santa Monica Amusement Pier in its prime, shortly before the La Monica Ballroom opened to 50,000 eager attendees. At the time, the ballroom was one of the largest in the world and would soon redefine nightlife along the California coast. |
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| (1924)* - Overhead view of the newly completed La Monica Ballroom sitting at the end of the Santa Monica Pier. |
Historical Notes Seen here shortly after completion, the La Monica Ballroom’s footprint dominated the western end of the pier. Its elaborate façade and rooftop domes added a new architectural grandeur to the Santa Monica shoreline. |
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| (1924)* - View looking northwest toward the Santa Monica Pier. In the foreground is the "Municipal Community Service Playground No. 2. Beyond that, crowds of people are seen looking out toward the surf. In the background stands the pier with its roller coaster and the newly constructed La Monica Ballroom. |
Historical Notes This image captures the pier during a bustling beach day in 1924, with the whimsical La Monica Ballroom rising in the distance like a Moorish castle above the Pacific. |
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| (1924)* - The elegant La Monica Ballroom perched over the ocean at the western edge of the Santa Monica Pier. |
Historical Notes The 15,000-square-foot ballroom featured a "submarine garden" interior theme and open windows for ocean breezes—creating a fantasy-like atmosphere for dancing couples above the sea. |
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| (1924)* - Autos crowd the pier during the grand opening of the La Monica Ballroom on July 23, 1924. |
Historical Notes The ballroom’s debut drew over 50,000 people, resulting in the first recorded traffic jam in Santa Monica history. The interior’s marine motif and spacious dance floor made it a sensation nearly overnight. |
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| (ca. 1920s)* - Looking back toward the Santa Monica coastline from the end of the pier, with the La Monica Ballroom in the foreground and the city’s beachside hotels rising behind. |
Historical Notes This view illustrates how the ballroom functioned as both a social and visual anchor for the pier. It served as a glamorous contrast to the stately hotels lining Ocean Avenue. |
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| (ca. 1926)*- Heavy surf crashes along the shore as the ornate La Monica Ballroom looms above the waves at the end of the pier. |
Historical Notes While the La Monica Ballroom is often described as having four minaret-topped corner towers, historical photographs show that it also featured several smaller domed cupolas along the roofline. These secondary turrets enhanced the building’s symmetry and gave it the exotic silhouette of a Moorish palace, especially when viewed from the beach or bluffs. |
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| (ca. 1927)* - Looking out to the shoreline from the Santa Monica Pier with the La Monica Ballroom seen at left. |
Historical Notes As the centerpiece of the pier, the ballroom’s massive frame offered sweeping views of both sea and shore, making it an attraction not just for dancers, but also for sightseers. |
Then and Now
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| (1927 vs Now)* - Santa Monica Pier showing the LA Monica Ballroom where the Ferris wheel is today. Contemporary photo by Lorie Vignolle-Moritz. Photo comparison by Jack Feldman. |
Historical Notes Though demolished in 1963, the legacy of La Monica lives on. The footprint once covered by its maple dance floor is now part of a modern amusement park that still entertains crowds above the surf. |
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| (ca. 1937)* - Looking out from Palisades Park towards the La Monica Ballroom on the Santa Monica Pier. Beachgoers cover the beach and many boats are docked in the bay. |
Historical Notes Though the ballroom’s dance heyday faded during the Depression, the building remained a dominant feature on the coastline, serving multiple functions including a lifeguard HQ and convention center. |
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| (1936)* - Crowds of people standing in line at the Catalina Steamer Landing on Santa Monica Pier across from the La Monica Ballroom. |
Historical Notes During the 1930s, the pier also served as a passenger terminal and yacht harbor. La Monica, now repurposed, witnessed the shift from dance hall to multipurpose waterfront facility. The Thirties saw the rise of the Santa Monica Yacht Harbor. A breakwater was constructed so boats could be safely moored and to also protect the pier. A collection of yachts, fishing boats and a cruise liner to Catalina made the yacht harbor their home base. However, the breakwater was poorly engineered and began to sink into the sandy ocean floor and it is almost completely submerged today. With Marina del Rey, the worlds' largest man-made pleasure boat harbor opening in 1965 just a few miles south of the pier, signaled the end of boating activities at the Santa Monica Pier. |
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| (1936)* – Postcard view of Santa Monica Beach showing the La Monica Ballroom on the pier. A portion of the Deauville Club can be seen in lower right (opened in 1927). |
Historical Notes By this time, the ballroom was no longer hosting nightly dances but remained a landmark structure amid the evolving beachscape and social clubs along the coast. |
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| (ca. 1930)* – The Santa Monica Deauville Club in the foreground, with the La Monica Ballroom rising in the distance above the pier. |
Historical Notes As elite beach clubs sprang up along the coast in the late 1920s, La Monica continued to be a popular public venue—bridging the divide between exclusive leisure and mass entertainment. |
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| (ca. 1934)* - Image of a crowd amid beach umbrellas watching two pugilists boxing in an outdoor boxing ring on the beach in front of the Santa Monica Athletic Club. The Santa Monica Pleasure Pier with the La Monica Ballroom and Municipal Pier are in the background. |
Historical Notes The La Monica Ballroom's success was short-lived as the Great Depression effectively ended the dance hall days. By the mid-1930’s it became a convention center, lifeguard headquarters and, for a short interim period, the City Jail. The building stood until 1963 when it was demolished.* Click HERE to see more Early Views of Santa Monica. |
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