The Lafayette

The Lafayette is not one building but three: the Spanish Baroque Campbell Apartments of 1928, the Art Deco Lafayette Hotel of 1929 and an International-style addition of 1948. Together they were run as one hotel for fifteen years and have been a condominium for more than fifty. This report traces the complex from its founding through the Hilton years and the 1955–59 expansion, which brought the award-winning Lanai wing by Killingsworth, Brady & Smith and a Grand Ballroom billed as the largest hotel ballroom west of Chicago.

Here is the Lafayette's public life: Miss Universe contestants lodged there every July from 1952 to 1959, Richard Nixon addressed a dinner in its rooms, Governor Ronald Reagan lunched in its ballroom and a nationally televised boxing match was fought there. Then come its closure, the condominium conversion, the Fender's Ballroom years and its designation as a Long Beach Historic Landmark in 1986.

Every claim is tagged as Documented, Reported, Conflict or Unverified, and a chapter sets out exactly where the sources disagree. The report includes the press record of 1941–1962, an event record of 1949–1977, more than fifty pages of newspaper clippings and the building's photographs.