Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla
In 1922, noted newspaper mogul and philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps, then 85 years old, spent some time recuperating from a broken hip at the La Jolla Sanitarium, a small, 10-bed hospital she’d paid to build on the 400 block of Prospect Street. Finding the facility lacking overall and insufficient in size to serve the growing town, she set out to build a larger one, on land she and her brother owned next door at 464 Prospect Street.
Completed in 1924, Scripps Memorial Hospital originally had 57 beds, and was a dramatic improvement over the simple Sanitarium, which would eventually be absorbed as the facility next door grew to a total of 105 beds through a 1950 addition nearly two decades after Scripps’ death. Even so, within a decade, La Jollans’ need for medical facilities outgrew the space, and in 1977, the complex was converted for research use by a government contractor. A decade later, the building was abandoned entirely, and it would spend another 12 years sitting vacant until development commenced to turn the site into a 47-unit condominium project.
The new Scripps La Jolla hospital was built at 9888 Genesee Avenue.