In March 2008, during a routine roof replacement on the Lafayette building's 11th floor patio, workers uncovered the 8 by 8 foot tile mural of a kneeling camel in front of the Pyramids of Giza. The vintage 1920's mural lay beneath two tons of roofing material, sand, tiles, cement, asphalt and tar. The tiles were signed by Cerillo Torres, the Chief Muralist at the D & M Tile Co. in Los Angeles (active from 1928-1939) whose bright Moorish-inspired tiles were used at the Mission Inn in Riverside, Balboa Park in San Diego and on Grace Line ocean liners of the 1930's. The Lafayette's Campbell Building, where the tile mural was discovered, was built in 1928 as luxury apartments with hotel amenities. The Campbell's Spanish Baroque style is typical of the pre-Art Deco architecture of the 1920's, with beautiful glazed cast terra-cotta ornamentation and Mediterranean Renaissance Revival balconies. The Friends of the Historical Lafayette (a nonprofit preservation group) received a Long Beach Navy Memorial Heritage Association grant which was used to clean, restore and install this city of Long Beach treasure on the exterior of the Lafayette for the public to enjoy.
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