7 Great Community Projects in Pacific Palisades
In the spring issue of Perspective Palisades, I highlighted five crucial land-use victories since 1972 that helped save the town’s character. This issue, I will focus on seven community-driven fundraising campaigns that resulted in greater recreational and cerebral opportunities for children, teenagers and adults alike by providing brand-new facilities.
Pierson Playhouse
In 1975, local Realtor Lelah Pierson and her husband, J. Townley, donated land to Theatre Palisades to build a 125-seat community theater between Haverford Avenue and Temescal Canyon Road. Previously, TP performances were presented at various venues in the Palisades.
With future Citizen of the Year Eva Holberg and businessman Bob McMillin leading a tenacious Building Fund campaign, Pierson Playhouse eventually opened in 1988 and still serves as a cozy venue for TP and Theatre Palisades Youth productions plus Historical Society talks.
“I worked round-the-clock for 10 to 15 years of my life and wrote over 2,000 thank-you notes,” said Holberg, whose efforts helped create a venue that has been described as “a monument to the generosity of our community.”
The New Branch Library Building
Miriam (Mitzi) Blahd, a philanthropist and longtime resident of Pacific Palisades, was president of the Friends of the Palisades Library when the City of L.A. announced plans to renovate the facility on Alma Real in the late 1990s. Mitzi felt that the town should have an entirely new building, but it would require grassroots fundraising to supplement funding by the city.
Joined by fellow Friends board members, she spearheaded a multi-year campaign that yielded more than $1 million towards the state-of-the-art library that opened in 2003.
A New Gym at the Recreation Center
By the mid-1990s, the small gym at the Palisades Recreation Center was nearing 50 years old and unable to handle the demand for more youth basketball and volleyball teams. The L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks had allocated $1 million in Proposition A money to build a new gym, but the funds were about to be returned because the projected cost had risen to $2 million.
Getting wind of this plan, Marquez Knolls activist Kurt Toppel told Councilman Marvin Braude, “Over my dead body, you are not returning those funds!!”
Braude challenged Toppel to raise the extra $1 million and Kurt came through (along with key fundraising associates Bill Barrett and Dallas Price), enabling the construction of the much larger facility on available land at the park. The building opened in 1998 and Toppel earned Citizen of the Year honors.
The “Field of Dreams” at the Park
While helping to coach his three sons when they played baseball, soccer and football at the Recreation Center, Mike Skinner grew increasingly frustrated about the deteriorating playing fields. Knowing that the City couldn’t afford to renovate and maintain these fields in a proper way, he joined with Bob Benton (commissioner of the Pacific Palisades Baseball Association) to lead a $1,000,000-plus fundraising campaign to build the Field of Dreams at the park in 2003.
These four baseball diamonds (with grass outfields joining to create a field for other youth sports) are maintained by a local nonprofit committee that must raise $75,000 a year to provide maintenance and improvements of the fields. Skinner was named Citizen of the Year in recognition of the years he dedicated to overseeing the Field of Dreams project.
Upgraded Athletic Facilities at Palisades High
Bob Jeffers, a member of the beautification nonprofit Palisades PRIDE, co-chaired a community-wide campaign to renovate the aging football/soccer/lacrosse field and running track at Palisades High, for which he received Citizen of the Year honors in 2008.
Following two years of fundraising, the $1.7-million makeover involved installing a synthetic turf field and an all-weather track surface, allowing various sports teams to utilize the facilities throughout the year without worrying about canceled games and practices due to muddy conditions. This renovation also broadened the number of soccer and lacrosse participants. Jeffers encouraged “brave souls” to get involved in community improvement projects.
“Civic work pays terribly, but the hours are flexible and the personal satisfaction can’t be beat.”
The Maggie Gilbert Aquatic Center
After the Palisades YMCA pool in Temescal Canyon was decommissioned in 2008, the community and the high school were left without a swimming facility. Who knew that Rose Gilbert, a celebrated English teacher at PaliHi, would come to the rescue?
Wanting to honor her late daughter Maggie, a swimmer and scholar, Rose had already donated $1 million towards the construction of the Maggie Gilbert Aquatic Center on the PaliHi campus. She later donated another $1 million (her late husband, Sam, was a wealthy builder and developer) and the MGAC, supported by a local fundraising campaign, opened in 2010. Kids learning to swim, adult lap swimmers and Pali’s championship swimming and water polo teams all benefit from this 13-lane pool.
Veterans Gardens & Bocce Courts
Jimmy Dunne and Bob Harter have already won Citizen of the Years honors for spearheading a major renovation at the Recreation Center that replaced the deteriorating and unsightly picnic area. Thanks to an initial $400,000 challenge pledge from American Legion Post 283, plus more than $1,500,000 in donations by residents, there’s now a welcoming community gathering place featuring three bocce ball courts, five garden areas (one for each branch of the military) and numerous benches, picnic tables and enclosed barbecues.
The facility, which required six years of dedicated collaboration between local volunteers and the L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks, will open to the public once the Recreation Center is allowed to reopen. The organizers plan to have organized Bocce and chess leagues for players and teams of all ages.