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# City OK’s $3M to start refurbishing Davies Estate
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/city-oks-3m-to-start-refurbishing-davies-estate/
- Published: 2005-07-05T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T07:22:25.000Z
- Author: Ryan Hyatt
- Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Davies site has been out of commission since ’94 quake*

SM BEACH — Elected officials last week authorized $3 million in grants to restore a historic estate on the beach built in the 1920s by newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst.

The Santa Monica City Council voted in favor of allocating $3 million to Pankow Special Projects to create design plans to rehabilitate the Marion Davies Estate located at 415 Pacific Coast Highway. The allocation, recommended by city staff, is part of $21 million granted to City Hall this past December by the Annenberg Foundation in order to refurbish the five-acre property.

The move to allow Pankow Special Projects, Ltd., a Pasadena-based design firm, to handle the design plans to renovate the site was approved 6-1 on June 28, with Councilman Bobby Shriver voting against it.

Shriver said he disapproved of the staff’s recommendation because he felt a better effort should have been made to recruit Santa Monica talent for the project.

“I am not voting against (the design firm that was selected), I am voting against the process by which they were selected,” Shriver said. “With a project of this magnitude, I think we could have done a better job to adapt to our usual (recruitment process) and get (our own world-class talent) involved.”

Shriver referred to Thom Mayne, Santa Monica resident and winner of the 2005 Pritzker Prize. The Pritzker Prize, supported by the Hyatt Foundation, is known as the most prestigious award in architecture.

The proposed contract amount includes the contractor’s pre-construction services and all design fees through completion of the design process and development at a guaranteed maximum price. Compliance with environmental regulations and approval of the final project, including review by several city groups, is expected in coming months.

The estate was built for Davies, Hearst’s mistress. The lavish compound once had dozens of rooms with expensive, detailed furnishings. In 1959, City Hall took control of the property and leased it to the private Sand and Sea Club, an arrangement which lasted from 1960 to 1990\. Then the site was open for public events, such as barbecues and weddings, until it was severely damaged in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and had to be closed down.

The estate, once the splendor of the rich and famous, has since been neglected and prone to trespassing and vandalism, some say.

Pankow Special Projects has completed a number of projects of “greater magnitude and complexity” than the Davies estate, according to a city staff report. The firm’s resume includes historical elements, making it “keenly familiar with the issues associated with preservation and restoration,” the staff report said.

Frederick Fisher and Partners, the team’s design architect, is an internationally-recognized architecture firm based in West Los Angeles. The award-winning firm specializes in art related design, historic building rehabilitation and residential work. Its projects include the restoration of the A. Quincy Jones Studio, adaptive reuse of the Santa Monica Bay Telephone Company Building for the headquarters for the Broad Art Foundation, among others.

A city staff report indicated that a notice inviting bids for design-build services for 415 PCH was published on Feb. 10 and 12 in a metropolitan newspaper. An invitation to apply was sent to more than 90 design, engineering and construction firms.

Of those outreach efforts, only three firms applied and only two were worth an interview, according to city staff.

Shriver questioned the quality of the outreach process, based on what he believed was a poor response.

“The fact we have had that many unanswered (invitations) doesn’t make me feel we’ve had the massive enthusiasm for the project I hoped for,” Shriver said.

Barbara Stinchfield, the city’s cultural services director who oversaw the selection process, explained to the City Council that Wallis Annenberg, who oversees the Annenberg grant, called ear-lier that day to say she was pleased Prankow Special Projects had been selected for the renovation design.

“She is extremely enthusiastic with the project,” Stinchfield said.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/070505-01_02.jpg)

Estate is in need of repair. (Photo: File photo The Marion Davies)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 5, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/070505.pdf?ref=smdp.com)