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La Venta Inn, Palos Verdes Estates. [No date: circa 1967-1975]. Ephemera, 65 cards; postcards 9 x 14 cm, directions cards 10 x 14 cm; illustrated with a pen-and-ink view of the inn printed in dark red and two pen-and-ink maps printed in black.
In Very Good condition. Unused stock, never mailed and never written on. All one cream laid card, trimmed by hand on a paper cutter, so the edges vary slightly and the postcards fall into two size groups of 29 and 27. Faint red ink marks run along one long edge of the directions cards and of the larger postcard group, visible only when the cards are stacked and viewed as a block; on any single card the mark is virtually undetectable. Mild toning consistent with age. Otherwise unmarked. Promotional stationery from La Venta Inn at 796 Via Del Monte, the Spanish Colonial landmark built in 1923 to designs by Walter and Pierpont Davis as Clubhouse 764, the sales office and architectural prototype for Frank Vanderlip's Palos Verdes Project, with grounds laid out by the Olmsted Brothers. Nine directions cards carry a hand-lettered site map and the legend "A touch of Old Spain, located high in the Palos Verdes Hills," wording the Palos Verdes Peninsula News echoed in May 1971. A South Bay road map on the reverse closes "As a courtesy to our neighbors, NO HORN HONKING PLEASE." Fifty-six postcards reproduce a pen-and-ink view of the inn above the coastline, signed in the plate M. Richter, with a stamp box and address rules on the back. The ZIP code, the all-numeric telephone exchange, and the Eskridge family's operating lease from the mid 1960s place the printing circa 1967-1975.