Many of the residents and visitors of Malibu today have no idea that among them was a unique man who was directly tied to a Malibu where there was no Pacific Coast Highway, beach houses, celebrities and all the other things that make up 21st century Malibu. That man was Grant Adamson.
He loved people and sharing his heritage in the original Malibu life style. In Grant’s company, you could be invited to ride on a saddle that his great grandfather Frederick Rindge rode on, through the same trails that the Rancho Malibu cowboys traveled on at the beginning of the of the 20th century. Or picnic and fish in the back part of Malibu Lagoon, a place of beauty and isolation where he spent many happy hours with his parents, Merritt and Sharon Adamson.
Grant lived with his wife, Terry, and their daughters, Lauren and Megan, near the original horse barns and corrals of the 17,000 acre Rancho Malibu. You could be in Grant’s backyard and walk into Chumash Indian caves that are just below Sierra Retreat Monastery, which Grant’s grandmother, Rhoda May Rindge, constructed in the 1930s along with her “Adamson beach house,” at Surfrider beach.
Grant represented Malibu’s rich heritage that was described in his great grandfather’s book “Happy Days in Southern California.” When you visited Grant’s home he had the same paintings that many of us have depicting Malibu’s beautiful sea and mountain scenes. The difference was that Grant’s paintings were originally painted by artists who were looking at the depicted scenes over 100 years ago, when cattle roamed over Malibu’s beaches and meadows. While Grant was fully integrated into today’s Malibu, he valued his first family’s heritage. Grant was often kidded upon his return from his travels to his tight knit group of his “old Malibu friends.” Upon his entrance for his early morning swim workout, he would be welcomed back with the words, “The man, the myth, and the legend.” Well, in all locker room jokes, there is an element of truth. The truth here is that he was a great man. The loss of Grant Adamson is beyond measure to his family and friends. To our Malibu community, it represents the end of our link to the past.