{"id":492801,"date":"2026-10-11T17:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T17:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/492801\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T17:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T17:30:10","slug":"inside-the-financial-troubles-of-the-womans-club-of-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/492801\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Financial Troubles of the Woman’s Club of Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charlie Chaplin played piano and Jean Harlow attended school on the grounds of the Woman\u2019s Club of Hollywood. This hidden gem was integral in the origin story of the entertainment capital of the world, however, at the time of this printing, the once-thriving property is scheduled to be sold at auction.<\/p>\n

In 1905, at a time when women couldn\u2019t yet vote, a group of about 20 dedicated and powerful members \u2014 led by its first elected president, Mrs. J. O. Churchill\u2014 worked to create The Woman\u2019s Club of Hollywood.<\/p>\n

Before that, there was no Chinese Theatre or Hollywood Sign. There was no film industry in California, and movies themselves barely existed as novelties imported from Europe or Thomas Edison\u2019s plant in New Jersey. Hollywood itself was an independent city of some 500 residents \u2014 a sleepy patch of rural farmland along the Cahuenga Pass that was mostly barley fields and orange trees. A single set of railroad tracks ran down what would become Hollywood Boulevard.<\/p>\n

A few years earlier, developer Harvey Wilcox and his wife Daeida purchased 120 acres of this farmland with the hopes of luring what the writer Hadley Meares described as \u201ccultured, wholesome Midwesterners looking for fresh air and a second act in California.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the new Woman\u2019s Club came together to improve their new community with the goal of bringing the town a public library. By February of 1906, the club rented two rooms in a frontier-era building at Hollywood and Cahuenga and built the city\u2019s first library. A year later, with money from steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and land donated by Mrs. Wilcox, a magnificent new library resembling an English cottage, with a basement meeting room for the Woman\u2019s Club, rose at Hollywood and Ivar. Facing a lack of water and sewers, Hollywood voted itself out of existence and was absorbed into the city of Los Angeles in 1910. Los Angeles immediately evicted the ladies from their building when L.A. city librarian Charles Fletcher Lummis had the idea to create a men\u2019s smoking room in the space.<\/p>\n

\"ArtieArtie Mason Carter and friends picnicking in Daisy DellCredit: Courtesy LA Phil<\/p>\n

Following the success of Cecil B. DeMille\u2019s The Squaw Man, the first feature film shot in Hollywood, the movie industry exploded across the Los Angeles landscape in the 1910s with makeshift studios popping up in former barns, saloons and even a Chinese laundry downtown. The allure of the nascent entertainment industry attracted young girls from across the country to come make it big in the movies \u2014 which didn\u2019t always end well.<\/p>\n

Have questions? Get answers.<\/p>\n

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The Hollywood Woman\u2019s Club stepped in again to improve Hollywood by creating a \u201cStudio Club\u201d in 1916. Budding actresses under 30, which later included Marilyn Monroe and Rita Moreno, could crash at the clubhouse, which offered cheap rent, laundry, loans and a theatrical practice room. The venue kept young ladies away from the lascivious forces that led Hollywood buildings to ban both actors and animals. During both World Wars, the ladies turned over their clubhouse to the Red Cross as a relief center.<\/p>\n

In between embarking on ambitious building projects, the club ladies enjoyed lectures, art shows and hiking into the nearby hills. It was during an exploration of Daisy Dell, a natural amphitheater in the Cahuenga Pass, that the Woman\u2019s Club dedicated itself to its most audacious venture yet. Starting in 1919, club members Artie Mason Carter and Christine Wetherill Stevenson led the creation of a magnificent outdoor music venue that would come to be known as the Hollywood Bowl.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe paid for the land and gave it to the Bowl,\u201d says club president Rosemary Lord, \u201cthen raised a million dollars for construction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The club also helped to found the Hollywood Hospital (today the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center) and Hollywood Union High School (today Hollywood High School). In the mid-1940s, the group sold its original clubhouse and built a new one on La Brea completed in 1949 \u2014 which Hollywood celebrities like Joan Crawford and Mary Pickford visited to host events and lectures. By the 1960s, the thriving club boasted more than 900 members.<\/p>\n

\"HollywoodCredit: Courtesy California State Library<\/p>\n

After 121 years, the nonprofit remains committed to education, wellness, arts and community. Mentors in the club keep up traditions, like the Christmas parties for orphans that began when the club was founded in what was then a rural farm town outside of the Los Angeles city limits.<\/p>\n

Just a few years ago, the organization was on a firm financial footing, headquartered in a quaint Spanish-style building surrounded by canary island date palms on lushly landscaped grounds boasting an auditorium, club rooms and a historic 1904 schoolhouse that had once educated stars like Harlow and Carole Lombard, the Hollywood School for Girls. Plus, it had a generous parking lot near La Brea and Franklin, in the heart of Hollywood. Time moved slowly at the clubhouse as the neighborhood changed around them.<\/p>\n

Club members continue to make care packages for the homeless, work on charity projects benefiting autistic children and donate to Meals on Wheels and Salvation Army food programs. \u201cEvery Christmas,\u201d club president Lord says, \u201cwe have 200 foster children here for a luncheon with Santa Claus.\u201d Last year\u2019s tax forms show income from membership dues and gifts totaled just over $2,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese ladies all have their heart in it,\u201d says former board member Claudia Deutsch. The issue in general for women\u2019s clubs is that the membership gets old. Funerals were a regular thing. They don\u2019t actively look for younger members, and these elderly women are like a target for bad actors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides the usual leaky roofs and deferred maintenance issues that come with old buildings, all accounts are that the club was sailing along into the 21st century.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really looking wonderful,\u201d Lord remarks about their historic clubhouse, where she says many of the ladies have picked up paintbrushes and personally contributed to a touch-up. \u201cWe have totally redecorated and returned it to how it was supposed to be when it was first built. The chandeliers are totally stunning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, between 2010 and 2012, the Woman\u2019s Club of Hollywood declared bankruptcy three times. Today, the club owes upwards of $7 million dollars to its private money lender \u2014 most of which did not go to the club.<\/p>\n

Lord remains upbeat in the face of the massive debt and financial knots the club is wrapped up in. \u201cToo many sharks,\u201d Deutsch remarks. \u201cIt\u2019s like a feeding frenzy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Woman'sCredit: Irvin Rivera<\/p>\n

No matter how thoughtful, their efforts seem akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. As of their last filing, The Woman\u2019s Club of Hollywood had $214,076 in assets and $5,375,462 in liabilities. \u201cOver the years,\u201d Lord says, \u201cthe older ladies running the place were sometimes, how can I say, tricked. So we\u2019ve ended up with a huge debt that we\u2019re really questioning.\u201d Lord set up a \u201cSave the Woman\u2019s Club of Hollywood\u201d GoFundMe that had, at press time, raised just over $10,000 for \u201clegal advocacy and financial restructuring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former board member Marcella Ruble believes the root of the debt problem was internal. \u201c[The club was] sitting on all these assets. Scot-free. No liens. No loans. No nothing,\u201d Ruble says. \u201cJennifer Morgan was the most important person. We\u2019ve been in lawsuit after lawsuit. Our initial thing was to stop her from stealing the club.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lord says that Morgan and another board member, Nina Van Tassel, were part of a breakaway faction that tried to take over the organization. \u201cSomebody talks themselves onto the board and pretends to be all pro-club,\u201d Deutsch adds. \u201cOnce they establish themselves, they get rid of people who would oppose them.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a 2011 story in The New York Times, that was when Van Tassel appointed herself president and hired Morgan as executive director at an annual salary reported at over $100,000. When a judge intervened in upcoming elections, Morgan and Van Tassel had the club file for bankruptcy. \u201cI have no idea which party is right,\u201d a federal judge said at the time. \u201cBut this is not a bankruptcy case, this is an internal fight. The main thing is to figure out who is really in charge, and that is not my job now here today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruble claims that before Morgan left, she took out a loan. \u201cShe finagled getting a mortgage on the property to which she had no right,\u201d Ruble says. \u201cThe guy who built the luxury condos next door gave her the financing \u2026 and she took all the money.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lord says the club doesn\u2019t know where the loan money went. \u201cIt didn\u2019t go to the club,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re not business people and had no idea what was going on. There was a scheme to steal the property.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Famulari is a longtime Hollywood club owner who volunteered to untangle the club\u2019s finances. \u201cI came here to set up a cystic fibrosis fundraiser six months ago,\u201d he says. \u201cRosemary regaled me with their tale of woe, and I haven\u2019t left since.\u201d<\/p>\n

The valuable real estate the club sits on has been owned by the organization since 1945. \u201cA woman came in and surreptitiously took over the club,\u201d Famulari says. \u201cShe took out a loan, a first trust deed. [The club] had no idea. When they finally got in control of the property, they found out they were being foreclosed on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LAThe original Woman\u2019s Club of Hollywood theater located at 7080 Hollywood Blvd.Credit: Courtesy Marc Wanamaker\/Bison Archives<\/p>\n

In the midst of cleaning up that debacle, the bankruptcy court appointed Heide Kurtz as a trustee to sort out the debts. In court documents, Kurtz claimed that taking out a loan was a breach of Morgan\u2019s fiduciary duty and further investigation was necessary.<\/p>\n

The building was declared a City of Los Angeles Historic- Cultural Monument in 1994 but was suffering from deferred maintenance and was not generating income. The COVID-19 lockdown knocked out the club\u2019s events business, which never came back. Location filming, which had included Grey\u2019s Anatomy, ABC\u2019s 9-1-1 and a slew of Hallmark movies, also dried up. Club members have tried to reactivate the space with comedy nights, music events, flea markets, painting classes, meditation and yoga open to the community.<\/p>\n

One board member reports that the group\u2019s former executive director removed historic furniture and lighting fixtures from the building as she left. The organization\u2019s historical archive also went missing. All that, and the historic schoolhouse building on the property had tenants that the club leaders would rather replace with a wellness center. \u201cWhat we call the squatters,\u201d says Lord. \u201cTwo actors \u2014 mother and son actors. They weren\u2019t paying rent since 2010.\u201d<\/p>\n

Famulari envisions a future where the property would operate akin to Mid-Wilshire\u2019s The Ebell of Los Angeles, another woman\u2019s group founded around the turn of the 20th century. \u201cIt\u2019s not a tea and crumpets thing,\u201d Famulari says. \u201c[The Women\u2019s Club of Hollywood] did amazing things for this city. If they survive, they can go back to building another library or another Hollywood Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe toughest part of this case is all of the women were elderly, and I don\u2019t think they knew or understood the permutations of what occurred,\u201d Famulari says. He contends that the group should not be liable for a loan made through what he calls a \u201cfake board,\u201d the proceeds of which did not benefit the club. \u201cWhat\u2019s even more insane,\u201d Famulari says, \u201cis how the court-appointed trustee dealt with it. They decided they should pay back that loan that had ballooned to $1.6 million.\u201d Famulari says Kurtz first decided to challenge the original loan, but changed her mind and borrowed more money \u2014 a second loan of $4 million, which he says the lender increased to $5 million. \u201cThe trustee had accrued $2 million in legal fees and paid herself $300,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

Famulari is convinced that this cure was worse than the disease. \u201cA trustee\u2019s obligation is to creditors,\u201d he says. \u201cBut they weren\u2019t legitimate creditors. The club did not benefit from that first loan. That was the fuse that ignited the entire disaster that has befallen this club.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Famulari, the club\u2019s second loan was for $4 million, which has since grown to $6.7 million due in part to prepaid interest. \u201cA hard money lender charges 10% interest and has a two-year payback.\u201d He calculates that, exclusive of principal, the debt service alone would cost more than $40,000 a month, which far exceeds their annual income. \u201cNo bank on Earth,\u201d Famulari says, \u201cwould look at the financials of this club and say, \u2018I\u2019ll give you $4 million bucks.\u2019 This is textbook predatory lending. It\u2019s about siphoning equity and nothing more \u2026 it\u2019s just grotesque.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LARosemary LordCredit: Irvin Rivera<\/p>\n

Lord says the club has sought help from elected officials without much luck. But at press time, Councilmember Nithya Raman\u2019s office offered to use her \u201cbully pulpit\u201d to lobby the lender for more time.<\/p>\n

In the face of a financial situation as grim as this, Famulari maintains the same Hollywood \u201cLet\u2019s put on a show!\u201d attitude as Lord and other members of the club. The nightlife veteran (SkyBar, Boulevard3) thinks a unique venue with a huge parking lot in the heart of Hollywood could become a hot new event space.<\/p>\n

With a grant from Home Depot, members have been improving their building, and on one hot Saturday night in August, the place was packed with young supporters at a dance party fundraiser, which raised $15,000. DJ Shane Thomas, electronic musician Gianna Geller and even the Bob Baker Marionettes showed up to sing and dance and try to find a way to save the club with a variety show.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very eclectic mishmash \u2014 all races, ages, cultures. And it was a dynamic and alive experience,\u201d says Famulari. \u201cIt was a bunch of people who really believed this was something worth saving, and they put their hearts and souls into it. There\u2019s power to that, and I am optimistic a solution will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charlie Chaplin played piano and Jean Harlow attended school on the grounds of the Woman\u2019s Club of Hollywood.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1743,48,52,51,47,50,49,9777,188545],"class_list":["post-492801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-hollywood","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-marilyn-monroe","tag-october-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}