During a business trip to Southern California for meetings earlier this year, our company took us out to dinner on a Sunday night to a restaurant up in the Santa Monica mountains north of Malibu. Pulling up in front of the place, I sort of thought, "What the hell kind of place is this?" It was a small building, set back from the road a bit with a facade that looked like it was an old Western saloon from the 1880's, complete with a deer rack on the front. With a bit of trepidation, I got out of the car and wandered into this restaurant by the name of The Old Place.
The man who founded The Old Place in 1970 - Tom Runyon - had a pretty colorful history behind him. He was born in Washington D.C to Charles Runyon II, who was a lawyer at the State Department, and Cornelia Runyon, who was an artist and sculptor. In 1923, Tom's father packed up his family, including Tom's older brother Charles III - who would later become the dean of law at Yale - and moved west to be closer to Tom's uncle who had moved to California a few years before.
Tom's uncle, Carmen Runyon, was a coal baron in the days before coal went on the decline as a fuel source. Carmen Runyon bought a plot of land in the hills above Hollywood in 1919 - the year before Tom was born - which included a canyon that was originally called "No Man's Canyon". Tom's uncle put in a hunting lodge on the property and Tom would spend his early years exploring and hunting in the canyon. (Today, that canyon - Runyon Canyon - is a popular outdoor recreation area in the city of Los Angeles.)
Charles Runyon II died in 1927 and Cornelia Runyon moved herself and her two boys to Brentwood on the west side of Los Angeles. But young Tom's heart remained in the canyon that his uncle owned. He would trap for wild animals - mountain lions had a healthy bounty back in the 1930's - and he'd sell their pelts along with pelts from raccoons and bobcats that he'd trap.
When he was in high school, Tom started to raise and train falcons. The story goes that he would take a rifle to school and hide it in his locker so he could shoot pigeons on the way home to feed to his falcons. (The 1930's were a much more simple time, weren't they? Can you imagine bringing a rifle onto school grounds - even keeping one in a car - today?)
Times were tough for the widow Runyon in the 1930's and the family was forced to rent out their house while they stayed in the chauffeur's quarters in the garage. After his brother had gone off to college, Runyon's mother felt that Brentwood was becoming too expensive to live in and too crowded with people who had the same ideas about moving to Southern California that the Runyon family had earlier on. She built a home on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean just west of Malibu and moved there in 1937.
Thanks to his mother's charm and his brother's legacy, Tom got a scholarship to a boarding school up the coast in Carpinteria, CA to finish out his high school years. But Tom didn't like to study. He bought a car that could pull a horse trailer that he would drive up and down the coast to explore and hunt the hills and canyons on horseback.
When he was 19, Runyon bought his first airplane and fell in love with flying. Just after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he signed up for the Army Air Corps and eventually saw action in World War II flying cargo missions in North Africa and Italy. After the war was over, Runyan stayed in the Air Corps and rose to the rank of major.
After being discharged from the Air Corps, Runyon went to New York City to study writing at Columbia University. He wrote articles for magazines - primarily fiction stories - before heading back out to California in the late 1950's.
Runyon immersed himself in the then-hot L.A. art community, living in a rented apartment above the carousel at the Santa Monica Pier in the late 50's and early 60's. Tom loved the party life and he hosted a number of soirees with legendary food and liquor spreads for people who were deep into the art scene in Los Angeles. One of those artists, Barbara "BoBo" Bell, caught the eye of Runyon and the couple eventually married in 1961. Thinking that he needed to settle down a bit and start a family, the Runyon's moved to his mother's home in Malibu that year. The couple were soon blessed with two children, a girl and a boy.
While living in Malibu, Runyon became friends with Dudley Murphy who owned a local restaurant/hotel on the Pacific Coast Highway overlooking the Pacific. A child of the Great Depression, Runyon had saved his money and started to invest in land parcels with Murphy in the hills above Malibu. The two donated a large parcel of land back to Los Angeles County in the mid-60's so a connecting road through the hills north of Malibu could be built.
Pictured at right - Tom Runyon. Picture courtesy the Runyon family and the Tompanga Messenger.
Runyon also invested in properties on his own. One of the places he bought was an old building along Mulholland Drive in an area known as Cornell. The building dated back to 1914 when it was originally built as a general store, but later served as the post office for the small town of Cornell. It had been abandoned a few years earlier and had become rather run down. Runyon bought the place and buildings next to it in 1968 with the intention of restoring the central area of Cornell to the way it was when it was a ranching community.
Not really knowing what to do with the old buildings, an old friend suggested that Runyon open a restaurant because he was so good at hosting parties. Having a taste of the restaurant lifestyle while hanging around Murphy's inn, Runyon thought a small steakhouse would be the perfect starting point. Because the building was so dilapidated when he took it over, it took Runyon nearly two years of restoring and renovating the place into a very basic restaurant. He always referred the building as "The Old Place" and the name stuck when it opened in 1970.
Initially, the Old Place had just two employees - Tom, who cooked, washed dishes, and was the bartender; and Barbara, who waited on tables. It had a very rustic appearance including swinging front doors like an old-time Western saloon. And they only sold two things - steaks and clams. (The clams were a nod to Runyon's youth when he would go back to the family's home on the New Jersey shore for visits.)
The Old Place was the antithesis of the glitz and glamor in L.A. and it became a favorite place for movie stars and other industry heavyweights to hide out and let their hair down. It wasn't out of the ordinary to see a movie star who was living in Malibu seated at the bar next to a local ranch hand or a guy who had been hunting in the hills.
One of the regulars at The Old Place was actor Steve McQueen who lived nearby with his wife, Ali McGraw. Director Sam Peckinpah was also a regular who hung out at The Old Place. McQueen and Peckinpah collaborated in a movie called "The Getaway" in 1972 that starred McQueen and McGraw. The three thought Runyon was such an interesting character in real life that he was cast as a bad guy in the movie. It was the first of a handful of bit roles for Runyon who also was cast in other films such as "Convoy" and "Every Which Way But Loose."
Bob Dylan would hang out at The Old Place on occasion, as well. One weekend, Dylan was playing an old piano in the back of the place. A guy sitting on the bar remarked to Runyon that the guy sort of looked like Bob Dylan. And he sort of sounded like Bob Dylan when he sung. "Probably because he is Bob Dylan," Runyon replied to the customer.
Tom Runyon was able to renovate other buildings and recapture some of the old ranch town essence of Cornell, which was eventually absorbed into the nearby community of Agoura Hills. He continued to run The Old Place - now with more employees - with Barbara deep into his 80's. In July of 2009, Runyon passed away peacefully at his Malibu home at the age of 89. The Old Place had been closed for a few weeks before and after Runyon's death, but his son, Morgan - who was a director of commercials and music videos, and who is somewhat famous for the Runman trilogy of underground cult surf movies - reopened The Old Place in late 2009 with partner Tim Skogstrom from the next door Cornell Winery and they continue to run the rustic steakhouse today.
From our hotel to The Old Place was about a 15 minute drive up into the Saratoga Hills of the Santa Monica Mountains and through a number of twists and turns before we ended up on Mulholland Drive. A quick left and around a curve brought us to the front of The Old Place. (see map) Upon entering the place, the bar is prominently the focus of the low-ceilinged dining area in The Old Place. It featured a bench instead of bar stools with antique light fixtures hanging from the ceiling. There were a series of heavy wood tables and booths in the small place. It was a pretty funky place - the restrooms were outside, around the building and to the back of the building.
We were a party of about 30 and there was no private area for us to all sit, so it was sort of catch-as-catch-can when it came to seating. I settled in with five other people crammed into a booth on the wall opposite the bar area. We immediately ordered a bottle of red wine for the table - a cabernet from the Opolo winery in Paso Robles, CA. The wine glasses were little cocktail glass - no stemware could be found even with a nice wine list.
I also wanted to start out with a beer and asked the server what kind of IPA's or pale ales they may have. He said that they had an IPA from the HopSaint Brewing Company in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance. It featured west coast hops that were very prevalent on the tongue, but had a nice smooth citrus finish to it. It was a very good IPA.
The menu at The Old Place has expanded since it's opening nearly 50 years ago, but not by much. They still offered a sirloin or a ribeye steak, and the steamed clams were still part of the appetizer menu. But items such as an organic grilled chicken breast in a white wine and sage marinade, beef stew and a chicken pot pie were part of the entrees listed on the menu. Appetizers included a New England-style clam chowder, a noodle & cheese bake that was The Old Place's variation on a mac & cheese dish, and a mushroom skillet that featured button, porcini and portobello mushrooms sautéed in a white wine, butter, cream, garlic, onion and thyme reduction sauce. It was topped with parmesan cheese and served with sour dough bread.
Personally, I wanted to try that, but I was outvoted at our table for the cheese and meat board. It featured soppressata and prosciutto for the meats, and the cheese was a gouda rubbed in espresso, a lavender-flavored goat cheese, and a parmigiana-reggiano cheese. Olives, toasted bread points, and smoked almonds came with the meat and cheese. It was all right, but I think I would have preferred the mushroom skillet a little more.
One of the items they did not have on the menu that evening was a bone-in filet. And that's what I got. I had them cook it medium-rare rather than the normal rare that I usually order for filets. But with the bone-in, it's a little more tough to cut around the bone if the meat is too rare. It came with a loaded baked potato the had real bacon bits, butter and sour cream on top. The bone-in filet was magnificent. All their steaks are grilled over oak wood and the taste of the wood-fired steak was outstanding.
My colleague, Todd, got the seafood "catch-of-the-day" - the halibut. It was sort of ironic that he got the halibut as we all went deep sea fishing earlier in the day as a company "team-building" exercise. (It was fun for about two hours, but unfortunately, we were out on the boat for seven hours.) Todd caught the biggest fish of a the day which was, of course, a halibut. But one of the crew members described it as a "small one". I'm guessing it was around 15 pounds, but the guy told me that it was a California halibut which grow to be about 35 to 40 pounds. He said that Pacific halibut can grow to 350 pounds or more. Nonetheless, my colleague, Todd, thought the grilled halibut - which was served on a bed of rice and topped with scallions - was very good.
One of my other colleagues got the sirloin salad - a small sliced sirloin that is placed on top of a bed of lettuce with avocado slices and sliced hearts of palm. It looked pretty good and he said that he was happy with his choice.
Any bit of doubt that I had when entering The Old Place went out the window with the delicious bone-in filet that I had for my meal that evening. The place was indeed funky and unique, and after learning the history of the place - and for it being known as a popular "hideout" for some of the more famous people in the Malibu area - I decided that I really liked it. We were a little cramped with six people seated in the heavy wood booth, but we made the best of it. Service was pretty good as we were tag teamed by a handful of servers to take care of any request we may have had. It's nothing fancy and it isn't fine dining, but my steak - I thought - was very good. And that's saying something about California steaks from a Midwestern boy. As I'm sitting here writing, I'm nodding my head as I remember the meal and the atmosphere at The Old Place and happy that we had the chance to go there.
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