Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe is located on Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades, California. The Mediterranean style building was constructed in 1927 as a community center for the Castellammare neighborhood, which rises directly behind it on the hillside. Originally the building housed some retail shops, a small restaurant and club, facilities for beachgoers, a meeting room for the community and probably a speakeasy. It was aquired by director Roland West in 1932 and he converted it into a high end restaurant. To lure in the Hollywood elite he had actress Thelma Todd add her name to the establishment. He had directed her in the 1931 film Corsair and the two had been an informal couple since then. West lived up the hillside in a home he called Castillo Del Mar, with his wife, actress Jewel Carmen. When the two separated in the spring of 1934 he moved into the second floor apartment at the cafe. Todd moved into the apartment in August of 1935 and it was here she was living in December of that same year when she met her untimely death. On the night of Saturday, December 14 she attended a party at the Trocadero and when she arrived back at the club on Sunday morning, around 3:30, she found that West had locked her out. The two had words the prior evening and he told her that if she wasn't home by a certain time he would bolt the door. Unable to get into the apartment she climbed the steps up the hillside and went to the garage at Castillo Del Mar. She got into her car, a Lincoln phaeton she kept parked in the garage, started the motor and was later found asphyxiated Monday morning. The police ruled it an accident, but rumors persist of either suicide or murder. West continued to own the cafe until his death in 1952, when it passed to his wife, actress Lola Lane. Today it houses a production company.
Submit photo(s) for this home.© Copyright 2015-2019 by History's Homes. All rights reserved.