What to Know
- 100th Year Celebration of the Culver Hotel, presented by the Culver City Historical Society
- Tuesday, July 23 at 7 p.m.; Veterans Memorial Building at 4117 Overland Avenue in Culver City
- Photos, stories, and some of the hotel's "mysteries" will be part of the evening event
Slipping into our lucky pair of red shoes before we click our heels three times?
We just might do so, if there's a chance that our fervent heel-clicking might lead us over the rainbow and to a place with plenty of "Oz"-inspired lore.
But ruby slippers aren't required to call upon a real-world destination that boasts plenty of Tinseltown-y ties to "The Wizard of Oz": The Culver Hotel, where the actors who played The Munchkins in the 1939 film famously stayed, is still in storied service.
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The Culver City Historical Society will look back at this legendary location on Tuesday evening, July 23 at the Veterans Memorial Building on Overland Avenue.
That's important to note: The 100th Year Celebration of the Culver Hotel will take place a short drive from the actual inn and not at the hotel, though stopping by The Culver for a coffee or another libation beforehand is always a possibility.
It's an iconic inn that is featured in dozens of history guides and hotel books thanks to its original owner — that would be Culver City founder Harry Culver — and its celebrity-filled annals, but fans also love it for its distinctive flatiron appearance, something that isn't all that common in Southern California.
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Photographs will help tell the intriguing inn's many tales at the special event. The evening will also dive into some of the hotel's "mysteries," and the Culver Hotel has a few, as any long-lived lodging establishment usually does.
Harry Culver opened The Hunt Hotel in September 1924, a "skyscraper" that could be seen from a quite a distance.
Downtown Los Angeles boasted dozens of big buildings by the mid-1920s, and a busily boisterous character to match, but the debut of this handsome hotel was one prominent sign, among many, that the on-the-rise film industry, and life in Southern California, was moving westward.
The roads of Culver City are not covered with yellow bricks, it's true.
But you'll want to follow your own inner yellow brick road, or ride your favorite broom if that's your preference, to this layered look-back at a hotel that stylishly spans the realms of fantasy and real life in the marvelous movie-making municipality.
