(1957-1974) Skipper’s Twin Palms restaurant and Skipper’s Calypso Room cocktail lounge were located adjacent to the La Jolla Palms Hotel, in La Jolla, California.
Irene and John Bretz owned the quiet La Jolla Palms motor court hotel for ten years before newlyweds Mary and Garland Bowie Hunter (1915-2010) bought the attached bar business and opened Skipper’s Twin Palms in 1957. Mary was a dietician who’d worked for Marshall Fields and Marston’s in San Diego, and “Skipper” Garland Hunter was a WWII Army vet. Skipper’s Twin Palms was a popular restaurant and piano bar, with nightly entertainment by small music combos like the Deacons.
They served 1950s-style steakhouse fare with a down-home charbroiled steak, halibut, fried shrimp, chicken livers with mushroom sauce, and casseroles. For dessert try Skipper’s famous fresh coconut cream pie, “made with rich custard, filled with chunks of fresh coconut and topped with whipped cream.” Irene Bretz rebuilt and enlarged the hotel in 1959 with a modern Polynesian style by Charles Byron Hewlett. The top floor was reserved for her personal residence.
By then, La Jolla’s Windansea area had become quite the little pocket of Polynesian Pop. Located across the boulevard was Harold and Betty Smith’s Luau Restaurant, and less than half a mile south was the Town House Hotel’s Pagan Room.
The Hunters stayed on after the hotel’s remodel, and over the years Skipper’s Twin Palms piano bar, the Calypso Room, became a well-known, safe haven for the local gay community.
For years, it was included in the Guild Guide, a national directory of safe establishments for the gay community, much like the Green Book was for African-Americans.
The Hunters kept the business until Buck retired in 1973 to play golf at Torrey Pines.
Windansea
La Jolla Palms Motel
6737 La Jolla Boulevard
La Jolla, CA 92037
