Harbor View House, Spanish Colonial Revival building in San Pedro, California.
Harbor View House is a five-story Spanish Colonial Revival building on a bluff above the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro. It was dedicated in 1926 as the Army and Navy Y.M.C.A. for servicemen at Fort MacArthur. Inside were 300 dormitory rooms, a gymnasium, a running track, a banquet room, a patio, a pool, boxing and wrestling rooms, and a coffee shop; the coffee shop, gymnasium and running track remain.
Spanish Colonial Revival style became popular after the Panama-California Exposition of 1915 introduced these designs to wider audiences. This building emerged during the period when this architectural movement gained momentum in Southern California.
The building's name changed with its users: opened in 1926 as the Army and Navy Y.M.C.A. for Fort MacArthur servicemen, it became the Harbor View House in 1967. During World War II it served over four million men, and celebrities such as Bob Hope and Lucille Ball visited. The coffee shop, gymnasium and running track survive from that era.
The building stands on a bluff above the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, at 33.7355, -118.2810. It has been empty since residents left in November 2018, so it can only be viewed from outside. The former swimming pool was filled in during the 1994 seismic retrofit, with offices built in the space above it.
The facade combines local California materials with Spanish craftsmanship techniques in unexpected ways. These combinations emerged from practical choices made by builders working with available regional resources.
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