Club Founder Dies Suddenly

Mitchell Stewart, the man who created Long Beach’s hottest concert venue — the Vault 350 — died last week.

Stewart was 48 years old and died of a heart attack Friday, April 25.

The Vault 350 opened in the fall of 2004, taking over what had been a Bank of America but for many years had been the Leonardo’s Latin music club. The Vault is a 1,500-seat capacity concert venue on the corner of Third Street and Pine Avenue downtown. It proved to be a boon for the continued growth of the area.

Stewart also had been working to open the Backstage Jazz Club next to the Vault. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge cleared away a legal hurdle last month by denying a temporary restraining order from Archstone City Place, which owns adjacent apartments.

Stewart was an entrepreneur who founded his own mortgage bank as well as owning the Vault 350. He lived in Calabasas and Malibu.

He was born in Louisiana and raised in Illinois. He graduated from the University of Minnesota and worked for a number of Wall Street financial institutions, becoming an expert in mortgage-backed securities. In 1993, he launched his first mortgage bank in Long Beach.

In addition to his wife Nurit, Mitchell is survived by his four children, mother, brother and two sisters. Funeral arrangements will be private.

Stewart had been active with a number of charities, the primary one being the Fred Jordan Mission, located on Los Angeles’ Skid Row. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the Fred Jordan Mission, P.O. Box 12345, Covina, CA 91722.

—Kurt Helin