Added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 17, 1986

The stretch of Speedway between Venice Boulevard and Washington Boulevard is an ugly one. It’s basically an alleyway between two rows of apartments, both of which face away like they’ve turned their back on the street. But sitting there at the corner of Speedway and 30th Avenue is a bloom of magenta flowers and deep green foliage that stands out against all of the drab stucco and asphalt. It’s the overgrown landscaping that hides the Venice Beach House, a historic craftsman house-turned-B&B that has stood in this spot since 1911, back when this area was just white sand dunes.

The Venice Beach House was built as a resort home for Warren Wilson, the publisher and editor of the Los Angeles Daily Journal for about half a century, beginning in the 1890s. The newspaper was (and remains today) primarily aimed at the legal profession, yet it gave Wilson a platform to write about politics and social issues. Over the years Wilson penned editorials pushing for women’s suffrage, combating racism and advocating for reform of the justice system. According to the house’s NRHP nomination form prepared by historian Diann Marsh, Wilson was particularly galled by the telegraph industry. He held telegraph operators responsible for the Daily Journal’s egregiously false report in 1912 that all passengers aboard the Titanic had been saved, claiming that they had a policy of selling the truth to the highest bidder, and calling for reform of the telegraph industry. 

Wilson’s job was high power and high pressure (here’s a story about one petty back and forth that Wilson got into with a rival paper, the Los Angeles Evening Express), and that doesn’t even take into account the wife and eight (!) children back at home. It’s no wonder that Wilson would want a sizable beach pad to clear his head and stick his toesies in the sand. 

With two stories and 4272 square feet of space, the Venice Beach House is one of the largest of the many craftsman-style bungalows in Venice, and one of the few with a full size yard. On the outside, you’ve got a lot of your traditional craftsman elements – wide eaves (like, reaaaaally wide), rafter tails, long bands of casement windows, a covered patio on the south facade for easy indoor/outdoor living (it was once a porte-cochère). The whole craftsman nine. These days the stucco bottom floor and shiplap-covered top floor are painted a handsome slate blue. The entirety of the western side of the first floor is framed in well-manicured plantings, like the windows have grown a bushy ‘70s mustache.

Head inside for a large living room that admits a ton of natural light and contains some truly delectable woodwork, much of it original. All the built-ins, exposed beams on the ceilings and wide wood frames around doors and windows give it that signature craftsman vibe, equal parts fancy and rustic. There’s a square corner block motif that carries through many of the frames around the entire house. From the interior pics I’ve seen, the whole thing hangs together beautifully, despite the individualized colors and design schemes in each room. 

The Wilson family bought land in Venice in 1908, just three years after tobacco importer Abbot Kinney dredged the first seven canals and started selling off subdivisions to those who could afford it. Kinney’s ambitions went beyond real estate. He wanted to create a “Venice of America,” a cultural and social hub where art and ideas could flourish. The Wilsons were just the kind of folk that Kinney hoped to attract, and Kinney himself was a regular guest at the Venice Beach House. They all became even closer after two of the Wilson daughters married two of Kinney’s sons. 

This home served as a meeting place for politicians, businessmen and the cultural elite to talk about LA’s future, or simply unwind. Charlie Chaplin reportedly spent time here while recording his 1914 film Kid Auto Races at Venice, the first appearance of his character The Tramp. 

Kinney’s vision for an Italian renaissance in California never really panned out. Residents were more into the idea of a resort town with roller coasters and camel rides than attending poetry readings and opera performances. After Kinney died in 1920, the city was annexed to LA, the original seven canals were filled in, and oil derricks began to throttle Venice’s charm after crude was discovered there in late 1929. 

The Venice Beach House stayed in the Wilson family for decades, until it was purchased by attorney Phillip Boesch and Vivian Boesch in the ‘70s. When they bought it, the property was operating as a boarding house. They restored it and turned it into a cozy inn, and today it’s still run as a posh bed & breakfast, with the occasional photo shoot, art show, wedding or private dinner, scheduling permitted. 

The suite names at the Venice Beach House reference colorful characters and moments from Venice history. There’s the James Peasgood Suite, named after the Venice City Treasurer who embezzled $35,000 of the city’s coffers in May of 1922, hung up a “Gone Fishing” sign on his office door, and skipped town for Oxnard before he was arrested two weeks later. There’s the Aimee McPherson Suite, in honor of the famous evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson who, some believe, hid out at the Venice Beach House in the days after her infamous “disappearance” from Venice Beach in 1926. There’s the Olympic Suite, where the Olympic Torch Relay organizers are said to have brought the torch for a private ceremony after decathlete Rafer Johnson lit the flame that opened the 1984 Summer Olympics in LA. There’s also the Abbot Kinney Suite, the Tramp’s Quarters…and of course, the Warren Wilson Suite.

Thank you to James Clarke of Boesch Law Group for the professional photos and background on the stories behind each of the rooms

Sources & Recommended Reading

+ Venice Beach House’s NRHP nomination form

+ Grace, Roger M: “Evening Express Hurls Insults at Daily Journal’s Manager” (Metropolitan News-Enterprise, January 14, 2010)

+ King, Gilbert: “The Incredible Disappearing Evangelist” (Smithsonian.com, June 17, 2013)

+ O’Dell, John: “Weekend Escape: Venice : Off the Boardwalk : Dad finds teenager’s choice for a getaway to be, like, really cool” (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 10, 1995)

+ Oliver, Myrna: “It’s the Law! : Daily Journal Checks the Pulse of L.A.’s Legal Community” (Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1985)

+ “Our History” (VeniceBeachHouse.com) 

+ “Whereabouts of Peasgood Still Unknown” (Oxnard Daily Courier, May 3, 1922 – accessed via NewspaperArchive)