Outdoor seating, a restaurant, a glass blowing booth and art gallery, a candy shop and stores that feature books, shoes, clothes and home furnishings have opened where there used to be tables and cubbyholes stacked with plates, bowls and kitschy ceramics.
Shops include the Chocolate Soldier, Studio Arts Gallery, Tootsies, Scout 3, Riviera Home, and Laguna Beach Books.
The merchandise, parking and construction may be new, but much of the material used in the renovation is old.
"Wherever possible, we used the old materials," Hanauer said on a tour of the site. "What's different is the foundations. There were none. We lifted the walls to build them."
Lumber from the old board and batten shacks was salvaged, old glass was reframed for the windows, patio bricks were saved and re-laid. Part of the brand new Sapphire Restaurant and Pantry is covered by the roof built in about 1925 for the Yum Yum Tea Room, the first structure erected on that corner.
Mementos from the "Only in Laguna" past are scattered throughout the site.
Yes, those funky plastic animals are back on the roof. The bear, elk and ram were restored before they were remounted.
Legend has it that one-time Pottery Shack owner Roy Childs was a hunter and the animals were a tribute to his passion, according to publicist Leslie Cunningham.
Slightly to the left and just below the rooftop animals is the mural created circa 1930 of a colorful strutting peacock with the legend "Do not sacrifice freedom for pomp and show," also recently restored.
The Charles Beauvais concrete statue of the Greeter, which weathered for decades on the corner of Brooks Street and the highway, was refurbished in 2006 by Arts Commissioner Mike Tauber.
