When Robin Lake and her husband, Matt, walked into La Valencia Hotel on Dec. 14, 1984, to get married, there was just one problem: a couple was sitting on the bench in front of the grand picture window they had chosen as their altar.
The minister told the strangers they were welcome to stay, but if they did, they would be married to each other in about 10 minutes.
The pair wished the couple well and willingly gave up their spot.
“We had a beautiful and short ceremony,” Lake said.
The newlyweds then posed for pictures in front of the hotel’s Christmas tree before slipping into the original Whaling Bar to celebrate. That night, they stayed in one of the hotel’s private cottages, where they made calls to tell friends and family they had eloped.
Four decades later, the Lakes return to the hotel every December anniversary.
“You can have a cocktail and look out the window,” Lake said. “We reminisce. We got married right there.”
Stories like Robin Lake’s are woven into every corner of La Valencia as the pink landmark on Prospect Street celebrates its 100th anniversary. Since opening in 1926, the Mediterranean-style property has been a living room, a refuge and a multigenerational anchor for La Jolla.
Few organizations illustrate that tapestry more vividly than the Rotary Club of La Jolla, which has been meeting at La Valencia since 1947, nearly 80 consecutive years.
Russell King, the club’s current president, said the relationship began in what is now the Galeria room, which at the time served as the hotel’s library. Club founders gathered there first to decide whether to form a club at all, and when they did, it became their home.
“A number of our current members are second- or third-generation descendants of some of those founders,” King said.
The connection runs so deep that the hotel’s image is printed on the club’s flag and a permanent brass plaque near the Galeria reads: “Rotary Meets Here.”
King said the plaque is more than a wayfinding sign. It is a legacy marker, proof of a bond that has outlasted trends that have swept other clubs.
“I don’t think other Rotary clubs have the same relationship with the venue where they meet,” he said. “I have to commend the executive management of La Valencia because they’ve always been community-focused.”
Throughout its history, La Valencia has functioned as a sanctuary in times of hardship. During World War II, residents climbed the hotel’s tower as part of the civilian defense program, scanning the skies for enemy aircraft. La Sala Lounge became a gathering place for the wives and girlfriends of servicemen stationed at nearby Camp Callan, who waited there for word of their loved ones.
More recently, during the Los Angeles wildfires, the hotel offered discounted rooms to displaced families. Several stayed for extended periods, effectively making La Valencia their temporary home.
No figure embodied La Valencia’s sense of home quite like Selma Malk, a South African immigrant who checked in sometime around 1984. She died in 2017 at the age of 103, having lived at the hotel for more than three decades.
Her daughter, Ann Lipschitz, who immortalized her mother in the memoir “The Queen of La Valencia,” said Selma started anew at the hotel, knowing exactly what she wanted.
“She arrived with two suitcases, one containing winter clothes and one containing summer clothes, and all her stuff from her home she put into storage,” Lipschitz said. “She didn’t want any responsibility at all, nothing.”
Selma requested the smallest available room, one without an ocean view, and proceeded to live as though the entire hotel were her domain. She held court nightly from the first booth at the Whaling Bar, scotch in hand, trading stories with longtime bartenders Manny and Polo.
Manny, who knew of her love of music, would take Selma across the border to Tijuana, where mariachis performed. During quieter evenings closer to home, she would settle into the hotel lounge and listen to the pianist, who, Lipschitz said, was really playing for Selma more than anyone else.
“I’ve got pictures of her sitting in her wheelchair next to the piano and him singing away to her,” Lipschitz said. “Her favorite song was ‘My Way.’”
It was, her daughter said, a perfectly fitting anthem.
A plaque in the Whaling Bar today bears Selma’s name, in a booth beside those honoring Joan Kroc and Theodor Geisel.
“We like to sit there and feel the Selma spirit,” Lipschitz said. “It reminds us of our fantastic mother, who was unique and lived the life she wanted in a hotel.”
La Valencia has also been home to entire careers. Salvador de la Torre Sr. started as a dishwasher and retired 50 years later as maître d’ of the former Sky Room restaurant. Across those decades, his son, daughter and other family members followed him through the same doors.
The “Pink Lady” has outlasted countless changes in the surrounding community while preserving what regulars describe as an ineffable continuity of spirit.
“We’ve watched its evolution over the years and we’re happy it’s maintained its charm,” Lake said. “It’s still so classy.”
“There are wonderful people who have been part of the hotel and part of the La Jolla community,” King said. “To us, La Valencia is that centerpiece.”
The public is invited to join the hotel’s centennial celebration with a calendar of special events throughout the year. For more information, go to www.lavalencia.com.
