ACT 4 Entertainment
1323 Ocean Avenue
Santa Monica, California 90401

T 310 458 4390
F 310 458 4399

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Act 4 Entertainment
Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica

The Act 4 office was originally a house built in the 1880’s, and is the oldest building in Santa Monica. The house is known as the Gussie Moran House, named for its former owner, the 1949 Wimbledon tennis star who advanced the design of women’s sportswear with the introduction of the ruffled “tennis panty” and inspired the phrase “all gussied up”. The Johnson’s had the property renovated between 2009 and 2010 by Mark Rios of Rios Clementi Hale Studios.

The front garden is intended to serve the community, and to be viewed by pedestrians. Tourists and residents stop to take photographs or to contemplate. It is regularly replanted with rows of perennials, offering a vibrant statement of change to this pedestrian district known worldwide as a prime tourist destination.

Nestled in a private court between the main house and the carriage house, a sixteen foot square marble terrace floats above the ground. Like the bands of flowers in the front yard, the terrace, both in material and detail, is a sculpture. As artist Lawrence Weiner’s text, “ALL OF THE ABOVE” painted on the carriage house exterior wall suggests, the project combines history, architecture, landscape, design and art, together with the social purpose of Act 4, into a creative whole.
 
Los Angeles Business Journal: Executive Style: Making Room for History, Politics  
Australian Design Review: All Gussied Up  
VIEW INTERIOR DESIGN MAGAZINE ARTICLE  
LA Times: Gussy Moran Dies at 89; Wimbledon tennis player, who once resided at 1323 Ocean Ave.