Brookside Winery/Vineyard Company

Here we have a mid-sixties postcard shot of the Brookside Winery located at 711 Brookhurst Street in Anaheim, CA. The back of the card states:

“Featuring over 100 different wines, champagnes, and brandies. Brookside Winery’s lovely Anaheim Cellar No. 5 and it’s tasting room, located midway between Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm, is…one of California’s oldest wineries – established in 1832.”

The card was dated March 31, 1972. The caption reads:

“Vi and I stopped here today. We had a taste of wine and I bought some to bring back. Archie stayed home.”

Must have been a fun place to taste a bit o’ vino during a break from the parks. I'll bet Archie was envious when he found out how much fun Vi and whoever had!



Now it's June, 2005. The winery is long gone and the building is available to lease. Last use: nightclub. The parking lot was littered with trash and the vines and other such landscaping had pretty much taken over. Over the past 40 years the surrounding area has crept in on the old gal; the motel to the right consumed what had been a formal auto entrance and parking area. Hopefully someone will take charge of this turretted, towered, and vaulted-ceiling endowed piece of Anaheim history and return it to it's former function...but I doubt it will happen...


On a side note, Brookhurst Bowl is located just a short distance North on Brookside. I highly recommend a visit to these vintage lanes. The coffee shop has great food and the Kopa Room is still going strong. I'll have some pictures of the unique late 50's sign complete with giant rotating bowling pin in a future post.

Happy travels---

Charter House / Anaheim Plaza Hotel Pool

Ahhh... the good old days...

Here's the olympic sized pool at the Charter House Hotel on Harbor Blvd in Anaheim, located across the street from the old Disneyland sign that many of us remember. As a guest of the Charter House, you would "Enjoy spacious comfort in modern sleeping rooms." When you get hungry, slip over to the Rib Room for "...fabulous roast beef, dancing and entertainment nightly." The CH opened up around 1960(?) with the Saga Motel directly to the North and the Fantasy Motel next door to the South. What a great place to stay during your Disneyland visit!


Fast forward to 2004, and my family and I are staying at the Anaheim Plaza Hotel. Looks kinda similar huh? Well, this is that same olympic size pool and those are the same spacious, flowered grounds that first greeted guests when Ike was in office. We usually stay at this fine place when we visit the Big D. The Rib Room is long gone and the nightly entertainment can be a bit sparce unless someone is getting married in one of the meeting rooms by the pool. This is the last olympic sized pool in the Anaheim area and was once the rival of the one at the Coral Club on the grounds of the Disneyland Hotel on the other side of the Magic Kingdom.

Two For My Brother

Here's a nice bit of time travel.

My family took an annual trip to Lake Tahoe nearly every Summer of my childhood. A few Summer's ago I tagged along with my brother's family and we re-created a few of the old shots.

The first pair were taken on the front deck of the cabin we always stayed at which was owned by my Dad's business partner, Ron. The top shot is from 1978, bottom 2002:

The area around the cabin had been wide open in the 70's...The neighborhood had filled in considerably by our return. We used to ride 3-wheelers out on the open sand around the cabin.

The second brace was taken in front of a Wells Fargo monument located along Highway 88 heading East towards Jackson, CA. Highway 88 was one of the two routes we alternated on when making the journey to South Lake Tahoe, the other being Highway 50. The top shot is from 1974, bottom 2002:

Though many years had passed, revisiting these youthful places brought back the old times as if new again. The familial connections made over time via shared places and concurrent experience are forged of strong material indeed...

Until next time ---