Lost art found at San Ysidro motel site
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20040415-9999-6m15t...
Renovation of shops uncovers mural, prints
By Janine Z??iga
April 15, 2004
SAN YSIDRO ? Two numbered prints by a painter considered to have been one of the world's best bullfighting artists have been uncovered in the former
lobby of the once-lavish El Toreador Motel.
Unseen by the public for almost 20 years, the prints and a mural were behind walls and a drop ceiling, which was torn down recently during renovation.
The old border motel, now the Toreador Plaza shopping center, was the place to stay for Tijuana-bound American tourists in the late 1940s and '50s.
Its lobby featured the mural signed by an artist named Avila and the prints of Juan Reus Parra, a well-known Spanish artist described in an obituary
last year as the "ultimate bullfighting impressionist."
The prints and mural will be refurbished as part of a $350,000 renovation of the old motel's main building, which was deemed historically significant
by San Diego historical experts in 1989. That means the building, with its noted neon bullfighter sign, and an outside grotto can't be significantly
changed or torn down.
"It's a landmark building and we want it to make a statement," said owner Javier Serhan.
Serhan said Toreador Plaza will remain a shopping center but that after the renovation it will more closely resemble the motel at the height of its
popularity. The motel, named for the Spanish word for bullfighter, had a matador theme.
Work in the old lobby space included re-creating an open, two-story room with a mezzanine. Workers uncovered the Reus prints, which are centered in
two arched alcoves on the mezzanine, and the mural, which was behind Sheetrock.
Serhan hopes to find a tenant, such as a coffee shop, for the space so it can be enjoyed by many people, including locals and those passing through
the busy border community.
"This will be the star space, the jewel of the shopping center," Serhan said. "With the open feel, this indoor balcony and the ornamental iron
handrail, it's going to look beautiful."
The renovation also will include new Spanish tiles and neon lighting along the roof, new stucco, windows and landscaping. The three spaces in the main
building will have all new interiors, some with rustic, beamed ceilings exposed. The old bullfighter sign has been refurbished to its original form,
Serhan said, based on old motel postcards.
Work began in January and was supposed to take 10 weeks. But the project's architect discovered the entire building required more steel-framed
support. The retrofit turned an estimated $250,000 project into a $350,000 project, Serhan said.
In its heyday, the 45-room El Toreador Motel, a few blocks from the international border, was an upscale resting spot for the Agua Caliente gambling
crowd and other Mexico travelers who wanted U.S. conveniences. Serhan said it is believed that matadors who performed in Tijuana would often have a
drink in the motel bar after a bloody bullfight and pray at the grotto, which holds a statue of the Virgin Mary.
Built in 1947 by a Portuguese contractor in the Spanish Colonial Revival style of architecture, the motel boasted the first pool built in San Ysidro.
The lighted, heated swimming pool with a colorful, mosaic bullfight scene at the bottom was eventually filled to build a parking lot.
The main two-story building housed the bar, a cafe and kitchen, and a large central lobby with a centered staircase leading to a balcony and eight
guest rooms. Other guest rooms were housed in five buildings laid out in a semi-circle around the motel patio, cabanas and pool. The motel also had a
mock jail, where guests used to take photographs for their memory books.
Local children used to sit on a hill overlooking the motel to check out the pool and watch the glamorous people who stayed there. Over the years,
however, the motel changed hands several times, then fell into disrepair.
It eventually closed in 1985. A battle between the owners and the community ended in 1990, when the San Diego City Council voted to save the main
motel but destroy the five buildings. While attempting to save the motel, community leaders and city officials cited its former prominence and its
role as a historic link between the United States and Mexico. Many Hollywood stars, including Buster Keaton, John Wayne and Jay Silverheels, who
played the Lone Ranger's sidekick, Tonto, rented suites or had drinks there.
Sixteen colorful murals of bullfights, and scenes of dancing, fiestas and siestas once adorned the outside walls of the motel. In 1952, the mural on
the lobby wall was changed from a bull ring scene to a street bullfight scene.
Serhan said work on the 6,000-square-foot main building should be completed this month. One of the building's spaces has been leased to a perfume
company and two remain available.
No one knows the value of the numbered prints that have been in the old lobby since the 1940s. They are signed J. Reus and stamped with the following:
"Ortega Valencia" (a Spanish lithography company); consecutive odd numbers, 615 and 617; and a warning in Spanish not to reproduce them.
Reus' colorful paintings often were made into posters announcing upcoming corridas, or bullfights. Some were made into lithographs. Reus died June 22,
2003, in Valencia, Spain.
"Whether or not they're worth anything, they're really cool prints," Serhan said. "Once you start seeing what's there ? the murals, the architecture
of the building, the neon bullfighter sign ? you really start to understand the value of the place, the diamond in the rough that needs to be
polished."
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