The Castaway's Club ,Newport Beach, Calif.

Name:The Castaways,Newport Beach Calif.
Type:restaurant
Street:Dover St. & PCH
City:Newport Beach
State:CA
country:USA
Status:defunct

Description:
The Castaways was a polynesian/nautical restaurant on the bluffs overlooking the Coast Highway & the Newport Beach Back Bay.
It burnt down in the later 1950's

[ Edited by: Atomic Tiki Punk 2010-08-04 19:05 ]

I found no mention of this place anywhere on TC
Info is very scarce, My wife's parents used to eat there in the 1950's
was a known spot for celebrities.

Anyone else have any Pics or info at all?

Newport Beach Chronological Timeline states it burnt down in 1956

[ Edited by: Atomic Tiki Punk 2010-08-04 17:56 ]

In a unrelated bit of info I came across in researching the Castaway's was...

Location shots for "Gilligan's Island"

"Cave scenes were shot in Newport Beach, California, across from the southern tip of the Balboa Peninsula, in a park just off Ocean Boulevard. The rock jetties at the entrance of Newport Bay can be seen during the opening theme during the line "A 3-Hour Tour" as the Minnow heads out to sea."

Found this at Orange County Memories (http://www.octhen.com)
Someone had commented on the Castaway's.

"Another I'd like to mention, although not nearly as good for food, was Mona's Castaway on the bluffs above Newport Harbor. It was a restaurant and nightclub started in the 1930s, and reached its peak during World War Two and the years immediately after. In those days it was the only place of its kind for many, many miles around. It was a favorite of officers from the Santa Ana Army Air Base and other local bases and military airfields. It was located right about where East 17th Street in Costa Mesa turns into Dover and proceeds down the hill to PCH. A fire around 1958 or so destroyed the Castaways, and now it's all but forgotten. Local visitors or part-time residents including Errol Flynn, Peter Lorre, Bette Davis, Andy Devine, James Cagney and others would occasionally stop by. John Wayne didn't come around until many years later."

Note: John Wayne lived just down the street from the Castaway's, he could walk there,if he wanted to.

Newport Beach Fire Records,lists this report & Pics...

Here you go ATP...from my "getting smaller daily" menu stash...

2 large 1 sheets. The Liquor/Wine one is on a pearl like paper stock, the main one on reg stock..hence the fading. It must have been a highbrow spot....$3.50 for a steak on April 2, 1948?

OGR, you selling your menus?

ATP,

Here is a photo showing the Castaway's Club building on the bluff. They also had a "Hollywood" type of sign on the front bluff.

DC

Also found this little tidbit of history:

I find it fascinating that many neighbors remember the Castaways Club, a popular watering hole and Orange County landmark that was destroyed by fire in 1956. The bluff top has been referred to as the “Castaways” ever since. The 160-acre site was originally built as the Orange County Country Club in 1913 and included an 18-hole golf course below the Castaways bluff, several tennis courts, a boathouse and bathhouse. Since golf courses didn’t start their transition to grass until the 1920s, the Orange County Country Club golf course (now called the Santa Ana Country Club) was probably compacted oil and sand until it was relocated to its present site in 1923 where wells could support irrigation. The Castaways course became a public course, and the clubhouse was refurbished as a restaurant and bar. It is rumored to have been a house of ill repute while operating as The Countess and Mona’s, until finally opened as the Castaways Club perched atop the bluff where the present park benches overlook the Newport Harbor basin.

DC

2 updates in one day, Thanks Rum & Dusty!

A little hard to read, but the phone number listed on the menu "BEACON 5465"
very cool, OGR!

P.S. let me know if you are selling that menu....

Just came across this old thread. I grew up in Newport and have very vivid memories of us neighborhood kids playing army around the stone ruins and concrete footprint of this place on the bluff. We were always uncovering artifacts from the restaurant. Wish I had kept a few. There was still a lot of palm trees and other lush foliage around the grounds.

We just referred to the place as "the Castaways".

In later years the ruins became quite the spot for us high-schoolers to hang out late at night and get into all sorts of trouble up there. Such prime real estate overlooking the back bay and ocean, I was always amazed it sat vacant for so many decades. I seem to recall the land being owned by The Irvine Company.

My dad was one of the Newport Beach firefighters that fought the blaze the night it burnt down. When a local reporter asked him how it was going, he responded "We'll stop it at the ocean."

My folks were frequent customers of the restaurant, and used to talk about it fairly often...very much missing the place. They had several photos taken there that I remember seeing, but don't know what ever happened to them. Some time after my mom died he remarried and somewhere along the way those photos were lost.

Don't know if my dad ever patronized it way back when it was Mona's...a reputed house of ill-repute. But he was a single Marine stationed at El Toro...so it wouldn't surprise me.

:)

[ Edited by: PremEx 2015-03-18 11:02 ]

Thanks PremEx! and if you should ever find those photos, please post them.
it is odd that as popular a place this was, how little documentation still exists.

ATP,

I found these postcard images from the Castaways in Newport Beach. I am assuming this is the same place as the Castaways Club? Looks like the same view.

Foreigner Rocks by the way!

DC

That is the place, Dusty! So cool! thanks for posting, the postcard photo is from the early 1950s.

That flat dirt area to the left in the postcard is where I lived, it's called "Linda Isle" (some years later of course)
when my family first moved to Newport & John Wayne lived right across the bay on the right side.

As per our earlier conversation, Foreigner does indeed, "not" rock!
they do not rock! they are unrockable.

[ Edited by: Atomic Tiki Punk 2015-03-18 20:32 ]

Yet another from the archives I thought I would add. This place looked like a great time.