Brown Derby
- Year
- 1926
- Style
- novelty
- City
- Los Angeles, CA
The original Brown Derby opened in February 1926 at 3427 Wilshire Boulevard, built in the unmistakable shape of a derby hat by Wilson Mizner, with the restaurant chain itself launched by Robert H. Cobb and Herbert K. Somborn, the former husband of film star Gloria Swanson. The hat-shaped building became one of the enduring images of Golden Age Hollywood.
the building
A building shaped like its name. The derby-hat form was pure programmatic architecture, a building designed to be an advertisement and a landmark simultaneously — visible and legible to anyone driving down Wilshire Boulevard, at a time when Los Angeles restaurants were beginning to compete for attention along its boulevards.
the style
Like Randy's Donuts, the Brown Derby belongs to the novelty architecture genre, where the building's outline literally illustrates its name rather than drawing on any historical style vocabulary.
significance
The original Brown Derby locations, including the Wilshire Boulevard hat building, had closed or been converted to other uses by the 1980s, though Disney later revived the Brown Derby name as a franchised restaurant brand in the 21st century.
nearby
- Immanuel Presbyterian Church
- Equitable Life Building
- Hotel Chancellor
- Chapman Park Market Building
- Chapman Park Studio Building
- St. Basil Catholic Church