The more than 100-year-old pier has a long and interesting history, serving as private shipping wharf, public promenade and even U.S. Coast Guard lookout station.
By Olivia Damavandi / Staff Writer
The Los Angeles Conservancy has announced the Malibu Pier as a recipient of its 28th annual Preservation Awards, which recognize outstanding achievement in the field of historic preservation.
The more than 100-year old pier, built by the pioneering Rindge family, was rebuilt after El Niño storms in 1993 and ’95 nearly destroyed it. The state, which owns the pier, went through many years of the renovation and selection of master concessionaire before fully reopening it last year.
“The awards jury really liked the fact that the project stayed true to the pier’s original concept, and that the pier is once again readily accessible to the public,” Linda Dishman, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy, said Tuesday in an e-mail. “They also felt it was important to recognize the State of California for its stewardship of this iconic historic resource.”
Frederick Hastings Rindge built the 780-foot-long Malibu Pier in 1905 as an import and export point of agricultural products to and from the Rindge family’s Malibu Rancho.
In 1934, the pier was opened to the public and charter fishing before its ownership was transferred in 1936 to bondholders who helped finance Malibu development. In 1938, the first small bait and tackle shop was built at the end of the pier. For decades, along with the adjacent Surfrider Beach, the pier was the site of Southern California culture and iconic fame, which became widely popularized in period beach films.
The U.S. Coast Guard utilized the pier during World War II as a diurnal lookout station until it was ravaged by a winter storm in 1943.
The storm-damaged pier was then sold for $50,000 to Malibu Pier Company under the condition that the company erect a building in the same location for the Coast Guard to reoccupy. When World War II ended, Malibu Pier Company expanded operations on the pier and constructed two buildings, one at the landside and one at the ocean end, which became a restaurant and a tackle shop, respectively.
The building on the landside of the pier became the Malibu Sports Club Restaurant in 1966, then the Malibu Pier Club after a change in ownership and then Alice’s Restaurant from 1972 to the closure of the pier in 1995.
Current day pier operations
After many delays and announcements of business openings that never happened, The Malibu Pier Club, Ruby’s Shake Shack and The Beachcomber Cafe all opened on the pier in the summer of 2008. Sport fishing boat trips are also offered.
Malibu Pier Surf Museum, a displayed collection of vintage surf memorabilia from the history of surf culture in Malibu, whale watching and coastal tours, a gift shop and beach equipment rentals are all slated to open for business later this year.
Calls to California State Parks to determine official dates have not yet been returned.
The State of California in 1980 purchased the pier in dilapidated condition from the Malibu Pier Company, which had previously owned it for approximately three decades.
After incurring severe damage from the El Niño storms of 1993 and from another storm in 1995, the state declared the pier unsafe and shut it down to the public. With a $6.2 million budget, the state began reconstructing the Malibu Pier in 1999 with a plan to restore it to its 1950’s condition as a tourist attraction.
In 2003, the state named Councilmember Jefferson Wagner, owner of Zuma Jay’s Surf Shop, and financial backer San Francisco attorney Alexander Leff as concessionaires of the pier under the masthead of The Malibu Pier Partners, LLC.
Seventy-five percent of the pier was open to the public by October of the same year, but it became the subject of a legal dispute over its name, “Malibu Pier,” which prolonged its completion.
Agoura resident Stephen Harper claimed to be the owner of the name, but the State Parks Department sued him for alleged trademark infringement. In August 2006 the jury unanimously awarded the name “Malibu Pier” to California State Parks.
Other legal battles between the state and its concessionaire, between the concession partners, and between the concessionaire and a restaurant company that didn’t make the cut also postponed the pier’s opening.
“It was a tough battle and it went on a long time but they [the state] did a great a job restoring the pier,” Mayor Andy Stern said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “It was very difficult, it turned out to be far more difficult than expected. But they did a great job.”