If you’re going to call yourself the Topper Motel, of course you’re going to have a big top hat as your welcome sign. This place was at 11733 Ventura, Studio City in the San Fernando Valley. And if that sign at the bottom is anything to go by, 3 bucks gets you a room. Or at least did in 1950, when this photo was taken. But that other sign saying “STEAM HEAT” has me intrigued. Obviously it was important enough to advertise, but what is it for? Would it have been used to heat the room?
The Topper Motel is still around, but is now known as Studio City Inn, which means it unfortunately no longer has that spiffy sign. This image is from February 2023.
Yes. It’s how the old cast iron radiators operate.
Yeah, it’s just heating a space using radiators. I’ve never lived anywhere with a radiator, but I’ve seen them in loads of old movies. “The Pajama Game” actually had a song about it!
I love that the original building is still there, it’s unfortunate they’ve removed all of it’s charm though
I totally agree with you. All the charm it had in the 50s has been lost just like many other businesses in LA. What is happening to this world???
I used to live on Arch Drive, which was right around the corner from the Topper Motel. Somehow I always wondered if it was named after that movie and/or the subsequent TV series. There were many motels like this in that stretch of Ventura Blvd. and the regulars on the ’70s+ Match Game used to joke about them as being places for, shall we say, rendezvouses. The dictionary says, “Rarely, the form ‘rendezvouses’ is encountered.” Awkward!
This brings back lots of Ventura Blvd memories, one being this top hat sign. The sign was certainly important to draw attention away from its competitors. As you can see from the photo, up the street there are signs for other motels. Ventura Blvd from the 1930’s through at least the 1950’s was one motel after another, interspersed with real estate offices. Before the freeways, Ventura Blvd and Sepulveda Blvd were the two main arteries going north and south through Los Angeles. To (south) Mexico and beyond and (north) San Francisco or on Sepulveda Blvd., the California Central Valley and beyond. These were long slow trips going through every town. The Sherman Oaks area and the Studio City area (then called Lankershim) were a good place to break up the drive before (or after) tackling the Cahuenga Pass. Many motorists took an overnight driving break in one of these motels. They were denser in Lankershim as the studios provided for a steady clientele of either visitors to the studios or workers who found it closer then their homes when working on a production, or as Martin Pal says, for “rendezvous.” There are remnants of these motels on both boulevards, some converted into other buildings, with or without new fronts, and a few that still welcome overnight guests.
Motels like this one turn up in several episodes of Perry Mason. The “r” word is usually involved.