Buh Bye, Sportsmen's Lodge

In the heart of the San Fernando Valley, a monument will change.

... A new development approved on Wednesday calls for demolishing the western half of the [Sportsmen's Lodge] complex, including the events center, River Rock restaurant, the waterfall, ponds, and water features and replacing them with a nearly 100,000-square-foot shopping center including a large gym and five restaurants. The hotel was renovated in a mid-century style in 2013 and will remain in operation. ...

The Los Angeles Conservancy meanwhile has not taken a position on the issue, and some citizen groups have felt left out of the planning process. “The neighbors never objected to this project,” says the group Our Studio City, “because they were not aware of it.” The city and developer agreed to add “two man-made lakes, connected by a stream” and a “plaque, monument, or display case commemorating the history of the Sportsmen’s Lodge.” ...

The Lodge, surprisingly enough, figures in The Animation Guild's sixty-three-year history.

The meeting and strike vote for the Guild's 1979 job action happened here. And as Prez Emeritus Tom Sito says:

In 1990, we held Grim Natwick's 100th Birthday there. 500 people attended, making it the last great reunion of the Golden Age of Animation. All the surviving Disney's Nine Old Men, Chuck Jones, Walter Lantz, Friz Freleng, Fleischer artists, UPA artists. It was a magical night. The early Annie Awards were held there, when they honored Max and Dave Fleischer, Tex Avery and Ub Iwerks. If those walls could talk.

Also, too, contract negotiations went on at the Lodge.

So it's a bit sad, heart-wrenching even, to see the old place get dismantled.