Dunbar Hotel

The Dunbar Hotel, originally known as Hotel Somerville, was built in 1928 on South Central Avenue by the socially and politically prominent Black power couple, John and Vada Somerville. It’s no surprise that John, the first African American man to graduate from the University of Southern California, and Vada, one of the first African American women to have a career in medicine, would make it a priority to turn their business venture into an opportunity for people of color in their South Los Angeles neighborhood. John and Veda hired only Black contractors, Black laborers, Black craftsmen and financed the development entirely through members of the Black community. The Dunbar was truly the west coast standard for Black owned and operated enterprises and for many years was the only hotel in all of Los Angeles that would welcome Black people. In its first year of business, it hosted the inaugural national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was frequented by the cream of the crop of Black intelligentsia.

Just after opening it’s doors in 1929 the stock market crashed. The Somerville’s were forced to sell to a syndicate of white investors. Although this was a sudden shock and disappointment to the Black community who had just finished building it, the new investors (at least) had the decency to rename the hotel The Dunbar in honor of Black poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Less than a year later, they resold it to Lucius W. Lomax, Sr. for $100,000, which restored the hotel’s Black ownership and allowed it to continue to operate as an important landmark for Black politics, business and most notably, music. It was Lomax who obtained the permit “to conduct a cabaret in the dining room.” At first, there was concern expressed by John Somerville and others in the neighborhood that turning the dining room into a dance club would minimize the importance of the Dunbar Hotel and “cast a lasting stigma on it.” They were worried that this might give white people an excuse to take Black people less seriously. But, Lomax didn’t care what any of them had to say and thankfully followed his own instincts because this night club became pivotal in providing a safe space for jazz music on the West Coast.

If you were Black and in Los Angeles in ‘30s and ‘40s and you wanted to enjoy a night out on the town, The Dunbar was your spot! The Hotel’s nightclub, briefly managed by former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson, set the tone with regular performances by jazz legends such as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Louis Jordan, Count Basie, Lena Horne, Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, Josephine Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Charles Mingus, and many others. Ray Charles stayed at The Dunbar when he first moved to Los Angeles as did many other African American luminaries — W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Ralph Bunche, Thurgood Marshall, James Weldon Johnson, Oscar Stanton De Priest, Tom Bradley comedian Redd Foxx, and arguably the world’s best heavyweight boxing champion in history, Joe Louis.

In 1934, during The Great Depression, Lomax sold the hotel to the Peace Mission Movement. The staff was fired and the building was renovated to accommodate a multi-racial religious colony run by Father Divine. The Dunbar was then sold to the Nelson family where it immediately resumed as a cultural epicenter. Just as racial segregation had created a need for the Dunbar, racial integration in the 1950s eliminated the need. Duke Ellington, who had previously kept a suite at the Dunbar, began staying at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, and others followed. As writer Roger Smith put it, “When the barriers against integration began to crumble in the late 1950s, so did the Dunbar Hotel” (Rescue of a Landmark: Hotel’s Doors Were Open to Black Stars When Others Were Not, Los Angeles Times, 1979). It was then sold again to a man named Bernard Johnson in 1968, and continued to struggle financially until it finally closed it’s doors in 1974. In that same year the Dunbar was designated as Historic-Cultural Landmark (no. 131) by the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission. The plaque called the hotel “an edifice dedicated to the memory and dignity of Black achievement.” It was also added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

The building remained vacant between 1974 and 1987 and declined drastically from neglect. Homeless people began using it as a shelter and it slowly became trashed and covered in graffiti. In 1987, City Councilwoman Jan Perry inspired the City of Los Angeles and the Coalition for Responsible Community Development to spend $4.2 million cleaning up and converting the building into low-income housing units for senior citizens and to install a Museum of Black History on the ground floor. The 115 hotel rooms on the top three floors were gutted and replaced with 72 apartments. The mezzanine, lobby, and basement retained their original décor and were converted into a museum and cultural center. The work to restore this Central Avenue gem earned a Conservancy Preservation Award in 2014.

— Written by Farida Amar