What Went Before? 6530/34 Sunset Blvd

I've written before about the restaurants that preceded the Cat & Fiddle on Sunset Blvd between Schrader and Las Palmas. It started life as the Mary Helen Tea Room, then the Gourmet restaurant and the polynesian restaurant Mouling. While looking through a Chamber of Commerce publication from 1927, I recently found some great renderings of the building as it was being built.



The popular actor Fred Thomson (husband of screenwriter Frances Marion) was the driving force behind this building, which was being built next door to the (then) Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. According to the Los Angeles Times, Thomson's Spanish shopping court and patio building (seen below) was patterned after Santa Barbara's De La Guerra Plaza.

Before it was the Cat and Fiddle (Part One)

Come on, you know the Cat and Fiddle! You wile away many a lovely day at 6530 Sunset Blvd. Perhaps you didn't know in it's previous life it was a Polynesian restaurant.

Before it was the Cat and Fiddle (Part Two)

Or that before that it was a Gourmet Restaurant.

Before it was the Cat and Fiddle (Part Three)

The establishment that started it all was the Mary Helen Tea Room, one of dozens of tea rooms in Los Angeles at the time. However this one counted costume designer Adrian and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce as it's neighbors.