CORONA DEL MAR : Old Hotel: a Dump or Landmark?

Tucked away on Seaview Avenue in Corona del Mar is a pink, three-story building covered with pink bougainvillea and surrounded by a chain-link fence and no-trespassing signs. Palm trees stand guard by the padlocked door, and green awnings hang from broken windows.

The Newport Beach City Council last week took a final step toward destruction of the building at 2500 Seaview Ave. when it approved plans for six condominiums on the site. Demolition is scheduled to start soon, according to David Dien, spokesman for Carnation Cove in Newport Beach, owner of the property.

Good riddance, some residents say of the structure that they describe as a flophouse firetrap. But at least a few mourn the loss of what once was the grand old Hotel Del Mar, Corona del Mar’s oldest building.

“I think it’s disgusting and sad to see it torn down for progress,” said resident Suzanne Volski, a real estate consultant. “There has to be some time when we say stop.”

Tim Mang, manager of an apartment complex next door to the old hotel, a complex that also is scheduled to give way to condominiums, agreed.

“I don’t like to see it go,” he said. “Condos are condos--this is tradition.”

But the structure’s more recent checkered past is one that resident Joe Collins would like to forget.

“I’m glad they’re getting rid of that piece of junk,” said Collins, a general contractor who lives across the street. “For years now, it’s been a collection of ladies of the night, dope dealers and everything else you can think of.”

“Frankly, it was a real dump,” said Councilman Phil Sansone. “I haven’t heard any sentiment other than, ‘Let’s get that thing out of there.’ It was a nuisance in the neighborhood.”

But others say that the residents simply tired of the fight to save it.

“I fought like hell to save that place and so did a lot of others,” said Barbara Humphreys, a Realtor who owned the building 10 years ago and tried to restore it. The city, however, refused to give her permission to operate a bed and breakfast inn there.

“Everyone got tired of the controversy,” she said. “It broke my heart.”

The Hotel Del Mar was built in 1907 by town founder George Hart to attract people to the isolated seaside town that he was unsuccessfully trying to promote, according to Dr. William Hendricks, director of Sherman Library in Corona del Mar for 25 years.