Balboa Pavilion

The Balboa Pavilion in Newport Beach, Orange County, California, is a California Historical Landmark and a National Historic Place. Established on July 1, 1906, the Balboa Pavilion played a prominent role in the development of Newport Beach by attracting real estate buyers to an area formerly designated as "swamp and overflow" land.The Balboa Pavilion is one of California's last surviving waterfront recreational pavilions from the turn of the century. The Pavilion continues to serve the public today as a marine recreational facility and is Newport Beach's most famous landmark, as well as its oldest standing building.HistoryOriginsOn September 20, 1905, the War Department in Washington D.C. granted a group of promoters, called the "Newport Bay Investment Company," permission to construct the Pavilion as a "boat-house, bath-house, and pavilion."The promoters built the pavilion on the Newport Harbor side of the sand spit and its sister project, the Balboa Pier, on the adjacent ocean side of the sand spit, which is today called the Balboa Peninsula. These two structures were built to attract lot purchasers to this area of Newport Beach called Balboa.DesignThe pavilion was designed by Los Angeles freelance architect Fred R. Dorn, who would later go on to work as an associate of Stiles O. Clements of Morgan, Walls & Clements. On July 1, 1906, the 65ft-high Victorian style building was fully completed to coincide with the completion of the Pacific Electric Railway Red Car Line extension to central Balboa near the Balboa Pavilion on July 4, 1906, after only 10 days of construction.