Bell Pavillion / Revisited

Sam Bell Beach House & Tramway (1955-65) by Dale Naegle

It's also known as the La Jolla Mushroom House. I've done a few posts on the house over the years. In fact, this photo was taken a decade ago.

It was built on Blacks Beach in La Jolla, California, as the guest house of the Samuel L. Bell summer residence. Sam Bell was of Bell's Potato Chips and heir to General Mills. He was also related to Henry Ford.

Apparently Sam Bell also had Eero Saarinen design a house for him. Here is the model of the unbuilt Saarinen house in New Hope, Penn. (1941)

Source: Courtesy of Cranbrook Archives, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

A perfect circle 30 feet in diameter, its roof and walls are poured concrete and concrete block. It features a private funicular connecting the “satellite” into the main house on the cliff. The construction cost in 1965 was $100,000. The original 1950s main house at the top of the cliff was demolished in 1990 and was not designed by Naegle. Neither was the large wall currently surrounding the pavilion. 

Dale Naegle at the top of the tram during construction of the Bell Pavilion below. 

Photo: Courtesy of Eric Naegle

The tramway is a 295 foot ride from the top to bottom.

The above article also goes into detail about security issues at the house, even five decades ago.

"Youths trek by carrying surfboards. Bearded, bareback beach dwellers with unkempt hair stagger by as though dazed. Litter from beach barbecues disturb the Bells, but not as much as hypodermics and other drug-party traces.

'Vandals are a problem at night,' says Mrs. Corn, an attractive young mother.

'Hippies. Beach bums'. It's a challenge to them. They just HAVE to try to get inside. We just push a button when we leave. The outside shutters slide down over the windows. Bolts lock in the steel doors, and the tramway climbs up the hill."

Source: Hartford Courant,  1969

The view from inside.

Source: LA Times, 1966

The interior spiral staircase. 

This is the house at the top of the tram. According to Eric, Dale's son, the original 1950s house that was there when the pavilion was built was demolished in 1990. However, the home there now is the house Dale designed in the 1990’s.

Back to present day. A few weeks ago I joined a group bike ride that headed to the not so secret "Mushroom House."

We arrived just as the high tide was coming in. If you don't time your visit right, you can get stranded or at least end up with wet feet. We got out just in time.

I've heard about some graffiti on the house within the past two years, but seeing it in person was something else.

In a SDUT article in 2023, when it was just a small amount of graffiti, a nearby resident was talking about the difficulties he was facing in trying to get permission to remove or paint the pavillion. He stated, “I was told by the Coastal Commission that I would need a permit [outlining my process] to make sure nothing got discharged into the ocean,” he said. As an alternative, Grofcsik proposed to paint over the graffiti by hand or with a sprayer. He said the owner “seems to be open to working with me.”

Obviously that hasn't happened.

There are other issues with the pavillion. Fors instance, the funicular looks like it's rusted beyond repair.

In addition to erosion, large sections of the cliff adjacent to the pavillion have collapsed, or as the City calls it, a geologic bluff failure occured. Removal of the soil was quite a legal mess and the first attempt was done illegally.

According to a planning commission report, "The block fall and slough aggraded behind the residence and

landing, which were not designed for this condition. Therefore, the accessory residence is in

imminent threat from block falls." 

I think this accumulation of dirt behind the structure also made it a lot easier for people to get over the wall and vandalize the house.

Source: City of San Diego

It's so puzzling why the owner has let the pavillion fall into disrepair. The graffiti obviously can't be blamed on the property owner, but the general neglect certainly doesn't help. Besides the architectural importance, the location is impossible to beat. There is no way a house could be built on the beach like this, so in this case the real estate value only makes sense if this structure is saved. 

Please don't!

Previous post on the Bell Pavillion is here.