The Good Ship Grace

In 1934, a destitute radio musician named Paul Myers was wandering the docks of San Diego in a drunken stupor when he heard the sound of a ship’s bell. He felt a call to become a preacher, and within months had turned his life around, reunited with his family, and begun hosting a Christian radio program called Haven of Rest, which was soon being broadcast on Beverly Hills radio station KPMC, and subsequently dozens of other stations around the country.

The program was named after a 19th-century sailor’s hymn (“'I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest, I'll sail the wide seas no more”) and featured many nautical motifs. Myers, who went by the name First Mate Bob on the air, began the show with the sounds of the ship’s bell and bosun’s whistle, and referred to his listeners as “shipmates.” Half an hour later he’d sign off, with the bell and whistle again, and a voice saying “All’s well.”

In 1941, with profits from his radio success, Myers constructed a headquarters for Haven of Rest’s broadcasts on Hyperion Avenue in Los Angeles. It was designed in the trendy Streamline Moderne style of the era, but in keeping with the program’s nautical theme, the building was constructed as a land-bound ship, complete with portholes, external companionways and gangplanks, and even actual ship’s working lights adorning the outside. The building was known as the Good Ship Grace, and the ship’s crew was the Haven of Rest Quartet, a vocal gospel group which sang acapella or with organ accompaniment—all while in naval uniform, of course.

When Myers fitted out the broadcast studio with recording equipment, the quartet became a commercial success in the Christian music business. In 1971 Myers retired, and three successive hosts took over Haven of Rest. The most recent, Charles Morris, took over in 2000, eliminating the old-timey quartet from the broadcasts and changing the name to Haven Today.

By then the Good Ship Grace had been sold to a pair of rock producers known as the Dust Brothers, who recorded there with acts like Santana, Beck, and Linkin Park. The building changed hands once more when it was bought by Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2010, after having been declared a Los Angeles Cultural Monument in 2007.