Our History

As Remembered by Suzanne Henderson and Frank Cooper in 2021

In the 1980s the Art Deco style was re-popularized and there was much enthusiasm about it in the design world. Interior Designer and Los Angeles native Joyce Colton (1925 – 2011) was the founder and first president of the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles in 1983. Heavily involved in the design world for 50 years, she was president of the Los Angeles Chapter and National Director of the American Society of Interior Designers. She was also a national board member of the National Society of Interior Designers, and co-founded the International Society of Interior Designers. She went on to found the Art Deco Society of the Northwest when she moved to Washington State.

Suzanne Henderson was Colton’s student at Cal State Northridge and often assisted her with projects. Henderson recalls, her professor coming into the office grumbling that San Francisco had an Art Deco Society, but that Los Angeles had more of a connection to Art Deco. Colton encountered the founder of the New York Art Deco Society at an exhibition in Paris and may have been inspired to start a society after that meeting.

“Joyce Colton, president of the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles, has traveled extensively and documented examples of Art Deco from Scotland to Romania to China. She proudly points to Los Angeles as being home to some of the finest examples.

“We are riding a crest right now of Art Deco revival in every aspect of our lives,” Colton says, “from fashion to interior design to architecture.” – Los Angeles Times (1985)

Colton tapped innovative Lucite furniture designer Charles Hollis Jones as the first Vice President and the very first meeting of the organization was held at his home. Hollis Jones had a broad spectrum of friends and clients including everyone from Tennessee Williams to the Kardashians. John Lautner was fond of Hollis Jones’ furniture. The designer suspected that it was because you could see the architect’s room right through his transparent furniture. One early event was a reception at the Pacific Design Center that featured Charles Hollis Jones furnishings.

In 1984 another important figure entered the organization in Christy Romero (1948 – 2009), an expert on antique and collectible costume jewelry who was an author of several books on jewelry, an educator and appraiser on “Antiques Road Show.” This new board member held jewelry lectures and loaned jewelry for the first Bullock’s Wilshire Fashion Show. The organization also held a reception where some Art Deco jewelry was available for sale. Henderson still loves the timeless pieces that her husband bought for her that night. Cooper recalls that Romero was enamored with the details above street level on Art Deco buildings and fell in love with the Eastern Columbia building – itself, resembling an Art Deco jewel box.

Frank Cooper joined the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles in 1984 and participated in finalizing the bylaws. There was a set back when the bylaws were submitted to the state and the organization received notice that the Northern California organization had registered Art Deco Societies in Los Angeles and other California cities. An agreement was reached and the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles was born in the City of Angels.

Another early event in 1986, 1987 and 1988, was a collaboration with Hollywood Heritage on a Gatsby style picnic at the Wattles Mansion in Hollywood.

Cooper had recently graduated from USC in Anthropology in 1984 and he was interested in how people were memorialized in cemeteries and the symbolism depicted on the monuments. He believes that when he founded the Hollywood Forever living history tour, it was the first organized fundraising effort at a cemetery on the West Coast. The tour, which continues today, covers the permanent residents who mapped Hollywood and put Hollywood on the map.

More than a decade after the organization was founded, under the presidency of Mitzi March Mogul, the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles hosted the 4th International World Congress on Art Deco in 1997 with a theme of “Los Angeles Art Deco and the Movies.” Guests stayed at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles and enjoyed tours of the Oviatt Penthouse, Miracle Mile. lunch at MGM Studios and even a ride to Long Beach to see the Queen Mary Art Deco era oceanliner, on the brand new (at the time) Blue Line. It was a whirlwind week of architectural tours including two Frank Lloyd Wright houses, cocktail parties, lectures and a screening of MADAM SATAN at the historic State Theatre on Broadway. The 1929 film is flamboyantly designed with uber-Art Deco style sets and costumes, with a centerpiece party scene set aboard a dirigible! The key note speaker was actress Fay Wray, known for her turn as King Kong’s object of affection in the 1933 movie.

The World Congress proved to the international consortium of Art Deco organizations that was ADSLA was a credible force. It also provided some income that allowed the group to embark on more costly future events. The group produced a 1999 “Crash Bash,” commemorating the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and eventually such events as Casino Moderne, Cocktails in Historic Places ®, a 1930s Drive-In Movie Experience and a lecture series paired with a film at the historic Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. In 2009 the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles took over the Avalon Ball (founded in 2003 by Stanely Sheff and Walter Nelson) which has become the organization’s largest fundraiser, topping out at over 700 dancers in 2023.

Presidents include:

Joyce Colton (1983 – 1985)

James Zinc

Mitzi March Mogul

Rory Cunningham

John Thomas (2010 - 2017)

Margot Gerber (2017 – 2023)

Marc Chevalier (2023 – present)