Once the tallest building in Glendale, the beaux arts Hotel Glendale stands as a monument to the ambitious development that the city underwent in the 1920s

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 7, 1994

My thoughts are on the conflict in Ukraine these days. So when I discovered that a radio station called KIEV once operated out of the historic Hotel Glendale, how could I choose any other site to write about next? We’ll get to the KIEV story shortly, but first, the hotel! 

At the time the Hotel Glendale was completed in the summer of 1925, Glendale was in the midst of a big development boom. Its population more than tripled from about 14,000 in 1920 to over 42,000 in 1924, and developers were keen on bulking up Glendale’s infrastructure and commerce to attract new settlers and new money. Enter the East Glendale Advancement Association, a consortium of prominent Glendalians and investors. The Association was led by Charles Ingledue, a real estate executive and civic leader who helped to establish the Glendale YMCA and Glendale Chamber of Commerce. They came together with three shared goals: pave Glendale’s main thoroughfares, build a new hotel right at the major intersection of Glendale Ave. and Broadway, and electrify the Union Pacific railroad line that ran right past it. 

The hotel plan didn’t go quite as Ingledue and the Association had hoped. Their attempts to finance it through public stock subscription failed four times, and the original plans had to be significantly scaled down to meet the eventual budget. Finally, in October of 1924, construction firm Kinne & Westerhouse broke ground on a six-story edifice designed by architects Arthur Lindley & Charles Selkirk – the same architect/contractor pair-up that gave us Glendale’s NRHP-listed Alex Theatre, also completed in 1925. The hotel opened with a lavish two-day reception of street performances, a Spanish-themed costume party, a dinner buffet and music from Kelly’s Shrine club orchestra. 

Despite the downsized plans, the Hotel Glendale was the largest building in the city at the time, and only the second to exceed four stories. While its beaux arts neoclassical design was fairly traditional by mid-’20s hotel standards, its construction of brick and reinforced concrete was innovative for a city built largely with wood frames and masonry. It would have cut an impressive figure during those days, looming high above one of the city’s main commercial corridors.

The Hotel Glendale was also unique for who it invited to stayed there. From the early days, the hotel accommodated both short-term stays on the top floors, and longer-term renters on floors two through four – 160 rooms in all. Within a few years though, the Hotel Glendale had lost its early lustre, and was almost exclusively catering to long-term tenants.

Rooms have been renovated and modernized and are now available as “Glendale Flats historic apartments.” The entire first floor has been converted into retail space. If you look inside the corner business, Highlight Coffee, it still retains some vestiges of the former lobby area; but otherwise little of the interior remains. One exception is a wine storage business called The Cave, located in the former basement of the Hotel Glendale, where the dining room and ballroom were located. The Cave claims to have kept the original ballroom floor intact. 

I’ll end by sharing this short blurb from the Glendale Historical Society:

Conceived as a hotel-apartment complex and designed by architects Arthur G. Lindley and Charles R. Selkirk, this building was considered a commercial and design failure. Today the Beaux-Arts style building provides a reminder of 1920s Glendale when optimism in the future was unlimited.

–Glendale Historical Society website

Ouch, right? But that blurb reinforces an idea that’s worth remembering: not every landmark business is important because it was successful. The Hotel Glendale exemplifies an important period of development in the history of one of LA’s communities. And for that, it’s worth getting to know.

OKAY! On to the radio station, KIEV 870

From the scraps of info I can gather, KIEV 870 began in the basement of the Hotel Glendale in the early ‘30s, initially broadcasting on 250 watts of power. The station was co-founded by David Cannon and the Utah-born, Glendale-based attorney Reed Callister, who would go on to become President of the British Mission in London for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. According to this 2008 piece in the Glendale News-Press, KIEV was one of the early stations to allow listeners to call in with music requests, an idea so popular that the phone company lodged a complaint to the FCC about the call volume!

KIEV tried out numerous formats over the years. They had music DJs, and attracted popular radio personalities like Dick Whittinghill, Don Rickles and Sam Benson. They had sports and religious shows covering a variety of faith traditions. And during the depths of the Great Depression, they featured daily speakers from the National Recovery Administration, a government agency founded in 1933 to develop codes of fair practice in the industry and labor sectors.

In the ‘60s, KIEV increased its broadcasting power and moved its main tower to a hill in Eagle Rock; the station itself moved to San Fernando Road in 1989, and the original tower at the back of the Hotel was demolished. As of 2001, the KIEV letters were retired. The AM 870 dial is now a conservative and religious talk radio station called The Answer.

Recommended Reading

+Hotel Glendale’s NRHP nomination form

+Verdugo Views (Glendale News-Press, 2008)

+Verdugo Views (Glendale News-Press, 2009)

+Four-point-one: Some Hotel Glendale History, (facts) (The Cave Wine Storage, 2013)

+KIEV AM 870 (SoCal Radio History)

+REED CALLISTER DIES, EX-LEADER OF BRITISH MISSION (Deseret News, 1989)