Did the English style of the Tail o' the Cock come from an early incarnation down the coast??
LAT Sept 19, 1954
From
Lawry's A la Cart online magazine, winter 2015
RICHARD N. FRANK’S DREAM of opening an English-style country inn in Southern California fifty years ago may not have come true without Matilda “Tillie” MacCulloch.
The American wife of a wealthy Scotsman lived a privileged life in England, but she never forgot the Southern California she first saw as a child in 1890. Following World War I, Tillie, with her daughter Marguerite in tow, made many trips from England to Newport Beach and Corona del Mar. There, like a generation of speculators before her, she began buying land.
Determined to bring a bit of the English countryside to the sleepy beach town, she built a replica of England’s oldest inn, Ye Olde Belle, a quarter mile from the ocean in 1936. She called it the Hurley Bell, a name based on the original inn’s location in Hurley-on-Thames.
The incongruous Tudor building stood as a lone sentinel on the relatively new Pacific Coast Highway in an otherwise undeveloped part of the village.
It served as a home for the mother and daughter for four years before being leased to Bruce Warren and his business partner, Shelton McHenry – the same Shelton McHenry whose Tail O’ the Cock competed with Lawry’s the Prime Rib on Beverly Hills’ Restaurant Row.
McHenry’s L.A. operation lasted forty years; the new Corona del Mar version closed after only three when the partners split up over McHenry’s objections to Warren’s arranging for “interested” restaurant guests to gamble in secret.
Tillie and Marguerite moved back in, revived the Hurley Bell name and ran it as an inn with guest rooms and a restaurant serving breakfast and dinner. It soon became a hideaway for Hollywood stars and their playmates. Lana Turner, Ava Gardner, Bette Davis and couples like Howard Hughes and Rita Hayworth, as well as Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, all provided fodder for the local gossip mill.
After Tillie died in 1948, Marguerite felt burdened running the inn, calling it “a real nightmare.” She leased the place to a succession of entrepreneurs who all failed to make a go of it.
The Hurley Bell suffered a steep decline and was even rumored to traffic in “unsavory behavior” in its bedrooms. By the mid-1960s, it was time to sell.
The moment couldn’t have been better for Richard to step in. He’d been seeking a way for Lawry’s Restaurants to enter the Orange County market.
The Hurley Bell was made to order, but in its dilapidated condition, it took a year to convert the building into the fanciful, fun Tom Jones era English country inn he envisioned. Prime Rib co-founder Walter Van de Kamp suggested a new name for the place, one that reflected its being the company’s fifth restaurant and the “real jewel in our crown.”
There is also this from the LAT, Feb 20, 2000:
The Five Crowns restaurant in Corona del Mar doesn't just have a menu brimming with British entrees. It has a proper English pedigree as well.
In the 1930s, an Englishwoman named Matilda "Tillie" MacCulloch traveled from her frigid homeland to California in search of sunshine. Although she loved Corona del Mar, she lamented its lack of decent British architecture and decided to do something about it.
She found an ancient inn southwest of London and hired a builder to replicate the structure here. The result was a Tudor building that she named Hurley Bell, after Ye Olde Bell at Hurley-on-Thames.
Orange County historian Jim Sleeper said the building began as MacCulloch's residence, then under new management became Tail O' the Cock, then reverted back to Hurley Bell. In 1965, the Hurley Bell became Five Crowns and has been a successful restaurant ever since.
Was the La Cienega location always in the English mode?
Valley News Aug 9, 1974
Re the CDM location/and the LA location:
LAT June 28, 1940/Sept 8, 1960
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seems "Mac" had a wee bit of trouble with locations...
Absolutely e_r: Cedrus deodara!
....how time flies) 
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