Patients at the Kabat-Kaiser Institute

Patients at the Kabat-Kaiser Institute seated in wheelchairs wait by the pool. The Institute, named for Henry J. Kaiser, a philanthropist, and Dr. Kabat, a neurophysiologist and clinical neurologist, served as an inpatient and outpatient center for those with neurological disorders. It was located at 1815 Ocean Front (renamed Ocean Front Walk). Kabat-Kaiser Institute later became known as Kaiser Permanente. Excerpt from website on Kaiser Permanente's History: The Santa Monica facility started out as the Edgewater Beach Hotel around 1925. In 1944 it was called the Ambassador Hotel and taken over by Army Air Corps as a Redistribution Station to rotate men out of combat. After the war, it became a private club, but not for long. The Permanente Foundation bought the building in October 1948 and opened it the next month as the Kabat-Kaiser Institute. A hospital ward was added January 1949.