Pool partying: Hollywood Billiards has transformed from a dive to a hot night spot.

Jeff Bey had spent several years and hundreds of thousands of dollars renovating the ancient and seedy Hollywood Billiards into a hip spot for actors, lawyers and the inevitable hustlers to come and shoot a rack or two of pool in a basement at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Ave.

By 1994, the junkies, prostitutes and beggars that once lingered outside the billiard parlor's door were a thing of the past, and the nightspot was doing more than $300,000 a year in business.

Then, on January 17, 1994, the Northridge earthquake shook the building's foundations and the place was red-tagged, unfit for business. Hollywood Billiards, a fixture since 1916, was no more.

"I had paid off the balloon payment on the mortgage for the old place in December (1993)," Bey recalled with a rueful smile. "I owned it free and clear for 17 days."

But instead of giving up, the successful ex-international attorney spent the next three and half years building a new Hollywood Billiards, which has become one of the hottest places in town.

Bey reopened his establishment in June 1997 at its new location on Hollywood near Wilton Place. It may only be a few blocks west of the old place, but its ambiance is miles away.

On any Saturday night, it is packed to its 1,200-person capacity, with a waiting line snaking down Hollywood Boulevard. Sleek foreign cars and limousines are familiar sights, as a clutch of no fewer than 30 valets rash around filling the one on-site and two off-site parking lots.

Inside, the first floor of the two-story space is jammed with people dancing, the pool tables having been pushed back safely to the walls behind curtains. Getting in a game of nine-ball is a tough proposition, because the remaining dozen tables upstairs are usually occupied.

"On Saturday night, we make $15,000 in three hours," Bey said. "I'd say only $300 of that is table time. It's much more of a bar scene."

On other nights, Hollywood Billiards increasingly has become a hot spot for entertainment-industry events or celebrity fund-raisers. Science-fiction television show "Seven Days" held its wrap party there a couple of months ago. Spelling Entertainment and Dream Quest Images, a special-effects company owned by Walt Disney Co., each had parties there recently. E! Entertainment Television held a benefit pool party for AIDS Project Los Angeles that raised $80,000, and in August, Hollywood Billiards will host the Third Annual Celebrity Billiards Tournament to benefit the City of Hope.

"Of the five parties I've arranged, that was the best," said Maria Padilla of the 150-person Christmas party she arranged at Hollywood Billiards last year as administrative assistant for the information services division of Paramount Pictures.

Word has gotten around the studio, and so many other groups have gone to the pool hall on her endorsement that "I should get a kickback from Jeff," she added.

It's all kind of a dizzying change when one considers what Hollywood Billiards used to be. Bey recalls characters like Ted the Vulture, who played unsuspecting college kids for cash or beer one-handed and ran the table on them.

"Ted was once playing this really green kid, obviously not from L.A.," Bey said. "And when Ted got up to go to the bathroom, I went up to the kid and asked him what they were playing for. The kid said he was playing for his bus ticket back home to Oklahoma, some place like that. So when Ted came out, I said to him, 'Hey Ted, go easy on the kid. He's playing for a bus ticket so he can go home.' And Ted said, 'He ain't going nowhere.'"

All that ended with the earthquake, and Bey could have counted his losses and given up. Instead, he bought a 30,000-square-foot parcel west of the old place, where a former Ferrari dealership and abandoned retail store stood. Both structures had been unoccupied for at least nine years when Bey put down $1.1 million for the site, and set about remaking his pool hall in a new image.

"It took me 42 months from the time I closed (the property acquisition) to the time I opened, and had I not been an attorney, it would have cost me more than $200,000 in attorney's fees," Bey said.

As it was, he plowed about $2 million into his new place, which due to its size, afforded opportunities previously unthinkable. The two structures were connected, with a central courtyard and fountain set in between. The former dealership was convened into a restaurant, Issima, serving Northern Italian food. The retail store was convened into the pool hall with 40 pool tables, three billiards tables and a snooker table, with two private rooms and a small dance club that often features live music.

Both floors have full-service bars with more than 40 different brands of beer. An 80-foot projection screen hangs from the second floor, which also has a small outdoor patio.

Along with Saturday night's club scene, Friday night is also busy, but with the more traditional pool-playing crowd. Hollywood Billiards charges $11 an hour for a table for two or more people. The pool hall is open seven days and nights a week, but does 70 percent of its business on weekends, when it is open until the wee hours of the morning. The restaurant is closed Sunday.

Bey sees the recent resurgence in development around Hollywood and the extension of the Red Line subway as vindication for his decision to stay in Hollywood.

"This is the most undervalued real estate in the county of L.A.," Bey argues. "Nine million tourists come through Hollywood (annually). And look at the demographics" of nearby residents, citing the proximity to Los Feliz, Hancock Park, West Hollywood and the Hollywood Hills.

Having been open for two years at the new location, business is good enough "so that we're seeing the kinds of numbers we like," Bey said.

He declined to reveal his revenues, but noted in a lawyerly way: "In terms of targeting our goals, we're where we want to be," he said. "I figured it would take us three years to achieve a solid customer base that takes advantage of the (entertainment) industry."

Hollywood Billiards' success runs contrary to that of another local institution, the Hollywood Athletic Club, which closed down its pool tables several months ago and now is open only for special events and private parties.

"I'm not saying pool isn't popular in other places, but for us it was a question of economics and a fall in people coming here to play pool," said Athletic Club manager Alan Cohen. "We still have a couple of tables upstairs for private parties, and that's it."