Where else is there to go when you have your own in-home bar?

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES

Apartments like the airy, two-story, three bedroom unit just off Retro Row rented by Susan Janz and Jennifer Celio can at once leave you feeling overwhelmed and pissed. Overwhelmed, because you realize this is but one of our city’s legion of great apartments—wood floors; quirky built-ins; beautiful, high, rounded ceilings—and pissed, because you don’t live in one. (Or maybe you do—but you could do better! Anyone up for a move?)

But there’s another reason to be jealous of Susan and Jennifer—the couple’s in-home bar, affectionately dubbed “Tame the Twitch.” With vintage red leather bar stools, an expandable floor-to-ceiling green lamp ($1 at an estate sale) and a collection of coasters from bars near and far covering one of the walls (a license plate, neon “bar” sign and photos line another wall), the nook seems like it was plucked straight from your cozy neighborhood dive—throw a TV in the corner and a Playboy touch-screen game on the bar top and you’d nearly have the V-Room (“We should replace the dining room table with a pool table!” Susan jokes).

Naturally, the bar’s centerpiece is the bar itself, a compact, portable brown bar with a good amount of shelves and counter space. It was in near-perfect condition when Susan and Jen purchased it from the original owners on Craigslist and now hosts guests at the couple’s much-raved-about parties, like their annual Big Gay Breakfast before the Pride parade. Also noteworthy is the light-up Michelob sign on the wall above the bar, which would easily net into the hundreds at places nearby along Retro Row, but which Susan—who works in property management—found abandoned inside a unit. You have to wait for a period of time before taking home any unclaimed property, she says, but then it’s yours to keep—like the Bacardi bar mats and the framed Death Row Records “11 million copies” wall plaque that hangs in the bar area as well.

The funky/cool decor of the bar nook is carried through the rest of the apartment—in the kitchen, vintage strawberry-shaped jars dot a long, thin counter top; across the way, checker-flag curtains hang above a green/black-and-white tiled sink; the powder room sink is filled with colorful, smooth rocks that Susan and her son picked up during a camping trip (“They aren’t pretty if they aren’t wet!”); and the Dia de los Muertos skeleton perched above the (in name only) fireplace sports different costumes for different occasions—currently, he’s (she’s?) holding a rainbow flag. There’s also paintings by Jennifer, an artist whose works have appeared previously in The District. Upstairs, she keeps a studio inside one of the rooms and another—larger one—in a storage room two doors down.

Like most of your favorite Long Beach apartment buildings, this one dates back a while—1929, to be exact. The current owner purchased it from the son of the builder—and inherited some stories too, like one that Jennifer heard about the builder standing across the street at Burbank Elementary School during the 1933 earthquake and watching his creation sway like a snake. The building’s age also means fun with fixtures—like figuring out what to do about the milk door in the back porch (it now houses clay pots), or marveling at a metal-lined flour drawer in the kitchen, or imaging how the original fridge (now a linen shelf) must have worked—back when copper pipes pumped cool air in from a compressor. It’s all very charming, and exceptionally welcoming—it’s easy to see this being a place where many memories are made, and not just because of the bar. Then again, when you have an apartment like this, you’re obliged to pay it forward like the best Long Beach renters do—with hospitality.

Tags: bar, living, Long Beach, pride parade, retro row, Shelter