Shown here in historical photographs are the massive library, dining room, and ballroom, among the largest and most opulent rooms in the mansion. While such formality and grandeur seems out of place at the beach it must be remembered Ocean House was primarily designed for grand scale entertaining.
Throughout Hollywood’s Golden Age the sumptuous balls and lavish costume parties held in these rooms were attended by legendary celebrities from Charlie Chaplin to Charles Lindbergh. The average party at Ocean House included about 300 elite guests but the house was designed to comfortably accommodate as many as 2000.
As anyone who’s ever lived at the beach knows how impossible it is to keep out the sand, I can only imagine the mountains of it removed from those expansive floors after a night of 4000 feet drifting in and out from beach to ballroom.
Photos by William Grimes