Long Beach

The decaying Pacific Coast Club, a 59-year-old historic landmark, is on the market again after the collapse of a Louisiana oil man’s effort to purchase the building at a bankruptcy sale.

Richard Gaylord of JTM Brokerage Corp. said groups from Hong Kong, New England and the Long Beach area have shown interest in the towered and turreted club, once a posh gathering place for the city’s elite and now a favorite of Long Beach preservationists. The building, on 1.5 acres on Ocean Boulevard east of downtown, is listed at $6.5 million.

“There’s as much interest in restoring it as there is in demolishing it and putting something else there,” Gaylord said.

However, mortgage companies with about $3 million in claims against the club’s owner are growing impatient. The club is the major asset in the 1 1/2-year-old bankruptcy case of Beverly Hills developer Josef Janota.

In the next few months, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James R. Dooley will consider creditors’ requests for a foreclosure against the property if it is not sold by June 1.

In October, Dooley approved sale of the club for $7.3 million to Earl M. Harter of Shreveport and Harter’s son David, a Los Angeles developer. But by the scheduled January closing date, the Harters had come up with just $100,000.

David Harter then tried to put together a partnership and made a new, $6.5-million offer for the site. Bankruptcy trustee Jim Stang said that was still the highest bid. He was prepared to ask Dooley to accept the deal, but a key partner withdrew two weeks ago and the agreement fell through.

The partnership had been planning to raze the club and build condominiums on the tract, Stang said.