- City:
- Santa Monica, CA
- Site Type:
- Post Offices, Civic Facilities, Federal Facilities
- New Deal Agencies:
- Treasury Department, Federal & Military Operations
- Started:
- 1937
- Completed:
- 1938
- Designers:
- Louis Simon, Neal Melick, Robert Dennis Murray
- Quality of Information:
- Very Good
- Marked:
- Yes
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
The elegant New Deal post office in Santa Monica, CA, was constructed in 1937-38 with Treasury Department funds. It was sold off by the US Postal Service in 2012 (the fate of many classic post offices in the 21st century).
Efforts to stop the privatization of the old post office failed, but the building was landmarked and the facade and lobby were saved. “In December 2013, [a company called] 1248 5th Street LLC purchased the Santa Monica Post Office as creative office space for Skyspace Productions. Prior to the purchase, Santa Monica City Council agreed to accept a preservation covenant for the post office’s exterior and lobby on August 27, 2013. In 2014, the site was designated a Santa Monica Landmark.”
The city also approved a project design that allowed Skyspace Productions to build a large structure behind the present facade. Thereafter, Skyspace outgrew the site and put it on the market, selling it to U.K.-based Allied Commercial Exporters Ltd. in 2018.
In 2021, the building was put to use as an art gallery space. When we visited in 2023, that was still the case. The facade has been painted, the landscaping redone, and the lobby stripped of almost all indications of its former function as a post office; but the elegant wood ceiling and faux-marble walls are still in place.
Source notes
Santa Monica Post Office, Los Angeles Conservancy (April 2020)
Matthew Hall, Former Post Office building for sale again, Santa Monica Daily Press, June 17, 2017.
Degen Pener, The Old Santa Monica Post Office Re-Opens as Art Gallery, The Hollywood Reporter, November 14, 2021.
Site originally submitted by Andrew Laverdiere on June 10, 2011.
Additional contributions by Richard Walker.
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Andrew Laverdiere
Gabriel Milner
I drove by the post office today and was saddened to see chain link fence around the building and a sign talking about its redevelopment.
Is there a photo of the mural Stanton Wright painted for the post office?
In “They Started Talking”, page 106, director Frank Tuttle wrote that in the group representing motion pictures, Stan’s models were Gloria Stuart, Leo Carillo, and him.
Tuttle had taken art classes with him as a teenager.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Tuttle
https://www.abebooks.com/Started-Talking-Frank-Tuttle-BearManor-Media/10520667355/bd
We’re still looking for a good image of it ourselves!