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These sign makers are restoring LA to its neon glory, one display at a time
The Knickerbocker sign rehabbed by Signmakers L.A.
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Courtesy Signmakers L.A.
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Paul Stoakes came from England to Los Angeles in the mid-1980s with $40 in his pocket.
He bummed around and did odd jobs until finding his calling at a small company that makes signs — all kinds of them.
" It's got engineering and art. That's basically what a sign is made from — and they're two of my favorite subjects," said Stoakes, who studied mechanical engineering.
Stoakes quickly plied his trade, and eventually started his own company. "We started off in a small double-car garage literally, then we went to a shop, then we got a bigger shop, now we're in the biggest shop," Stoakes said.
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The Signmakers LA studio.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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The Pegasus horse symbol at Signmakers LA.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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Today, the 10,000-square-foot headquarters of Signmakers L.A. in downtown is as much a sign production shop as it is a showroom of the work Stoakes and his crew of some 20 workers have done over more than two decades. On display is a Rolling Stone tongue and lips logo, a pair of Felix the Cat signs, a Pegasus horse that was a symbol for a gas station brand.
And they all have something in common. Even though Signmakers make all kinds of signs — from a small vinyl banner for a welcome home party to a half-million dollar preservation job — they have become known as the go-to people for neon signs, be it their preservation, restoration or making them from scratch.
"I mean, how does anyone do anything?" Stoakes said. "We grew into that title."
Paul Stoakes of Signmakers LA at his downtown Los Angeles shop.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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The rise, fall, and return of neon
Neon signs were symbols of luxury and class in America during its heyday in the 1920s, said Corrie Siegel, executive director of the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale.
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" If you had a new building, or if you wanted to redo your building to keep up with the times, you would add a neon sign because it was this beacon of modernity," Siegel said.
That continued through the Great Depression, Siegel said, and even after World War II, to the degree that many GIs returning home from the the war studied to become neon makers.
Signmakers LA rehabbed the marquee of The Rialto Theatre in South Pasadena.
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Courtesy Signmakers LA
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"It was seen as this way to keep the urban environment vital to increase business," Siegel said.
But neon eventually fell out of favor and acquired a connotation of seediness and urban decay. Siegel said neon signs were even banned in some American cities, including Glendale, which in the 1970s passed an ordinance to make certain types of displays illegal.
It was against this backdrop of obsolescence that neon's rehabilitation started to take root in the 1980s, led by the counterculture, Siegel said.
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"That's when a lot of neon artists start using it. And then also, like, a lot of punks and other kind of young establishments start taking it up that led to this call for preservation," Siegel said.
The neon path
The 1980s was also the decade when Stoakes started to dabble in sign-making.
The first big neon project Signmakers did was a brand new sign for Universal CityWalk in the early 2000s. It was of a face of a woman with Medusa-like hair that instead of snakes were made up of Porsches.
" I learned a lot on it and I made quite a few mistakes," Stoakes said. "But that gave me the confidence and it made me understand that, 'Oh, this is a big town. There's a lot of signage here.' And then I got really more serious into the industry."
Signmakers LA crew restoring the neon sign for Vision Theatre in Leimert Park
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Courtesy Signmakers LA
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From there Stoakes's interest in neon grew, propelled particularly by a friendship he developed with a client named Paul Greenstein, a respected vintage neon sign restorationist in Los Angeles. Greenstein and his partner Dydia DeLyser, a researcher and geographer, co-wrote the history book, Neon: A Light History.
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"That friendship between Paul, Dydia definitely spurred the work coming in and the interest in it," Stoakes said. "We start to get more traction."
Many of Los Angeles's restored cinema marquees are the works of Signmakers L.A.: The Nimoy Theater in Westwood. The Rialto Theatre in South Pasadena that is currently a church. The Vision Theatre in Leimert Park. The Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City.
The restored marquee at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater in Highland Park
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Angel Origgi
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Courtesy Bob Baker Marionette Theater
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And most recently, Signmakers completed the renovation of the Bob Baker Marionette Theater (BBMT) marquee in Highland Park.
"We needed to really look into quite a lot of precision — what it would take for us to restore our marquee," said Mary Fagot, co-executive director of the BBMT. "The art of traditional neon is something that is dying out, although it is having somewhat of a recent resurgence. We knew that to keep in the spirit of everything that we do at Bob Baker, everything that's handcrafted and artists made — we wanted to go that route."
The recommendations the theater got to get the job done right all pointed to Signmakers.
Fagot said the finished work has drawn praises far and wide.
"We've had people who really are specialists in marquee design come and tell us that, 'You know, it's one of the best new marquees using traditional neon that's been made in the last 20 years,'" Fagot said.
Starlite Drive-In in South El Monte
The original Starlite Drive-In marquee in South El Monte.
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Courtesy Signmakers LA
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The Starlite Drive-In marquee in South El Monte is now being rebuilt by Signmakers LA
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Courtesy Signmakers LA
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Currently, Stoakes and his team are working to restore the Starlite Drive-In marquee in South El Monte.
The plot of land where it sits will be the site of a new community of condos built by KB Homes. Stoakes said the company loved the drive-in sign so much they decided to restore it.
The vintage display was in such a dilapidated state that only the I beams were intact. So the plan now is to rebuild it to its original likeness — using as much as the same process as before.
Stoakes said the new sign is expected to go up in early 2025. The building of the sign itself takes months, but it's a project that's been a couple years in the making, involving tons of research.
Work crew dismantle the Starlite Drive-In marquee in South El Monte. Signmakers LA's Paul Stokes said his team went out to the survey the site and took precise measurements of the sign for the rebuild.
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Courtesy Signmakers LA
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Courtesy Signmakers LA
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It's standard operating procedure for Stoakes and his team.
"Paul Stoakes is very passionate about neon," said Siegel with the Museum of Neon Art. " Paul's really interested in bolstering neon when he can, that's something that is rare and very special."
Siegel met Stoakes several years ago, when Signmakers L.A. was tapped to bring the Earl Carroll Theatre in Hollywood to its original 1938 glory. That project never truly got off the ground.
But Siegel remembered Stoakes and his team digging through archival photos to get the design just right — down to how the original neon sign was animated to the type of paint the building used back in the days.
" I think that is what you need," he said. "The love is really important to being a sign maker because it's more than just a sign. It is a community beacon. It is a symbol of hope. It is this cosmic call."
Corrected December 22, 2024 at 10:05 PM PST
A previous version of this story misspelled Kirk Douglas' first name. LAist regrets the error.
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