Abbot Kinney created Venice, built its canals and piers, and brought the first hordes of visitors to Southern California beaches. It was the vision of Abbot Kinney that transformed a few miles of beach marshland at the turn of the century into the ragtime era’s playground of the west.

Kinney made his fortune with Sweet Caporal, one of the first tobacco cigarettes (No Smoking in the Inn, please!). But it wasn’t the cigarette invention that earned Mr. Kinney a niche in history. A true Renaissance Man, Kinney cashed in his tobacco empire to become the leading expert in the west on American Indian affairs. In his spare time, he controlled local politics, authored definitive texts on forestry and was anointed Maharajah of Egypt for vaccination the Egyptian population against the devastating plague.

His travels always brought him back to Venice and The Venice Beach House as his two sons married two daughters of the Wilson family, the builder of this beach retreat.