Along the PCH
If this Malibu is not enough for you, there are other Malibu towns in Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, Canada and Barbados (where they make Malibu Rum).
Twenty years ago, in 1986: The Malibu Sea Lion USA was re-dedicated in June with new owner Bob Morris honoring Chris Polos, the 99-year-old former owner. One month later, Polos passed away. At about the same time, another Malibu original, Jeanette “Gigi” Gunn of La Costa Beach, celebrated her 100th birthday. Gunn and her husband had bought the Olas Grande Inn across the street from La Costa Beach Club and moved the building down to the corner of Rambla Pacifico in the 1940s. They added three apartments upstairs to create the La Costa Plaza. The same arched building now houses the post office and Malibu Divers; the east extension came later.
Malibu Canyon was opened to the public in 1953. My early, vague memories of the road as a small child, using it lieu of Topanga on rare occasions when visiting the beach from the Valley, was that it was much narrower and without any guardrails or streetlights and, thus, where my inevitable death awaited at the bottom of the dark, steep, rocky canyon.
The heart of Malibu in this decade and last has to be Cross Creek Road with the hubbub of activity between the two shopping plazas and the wonderful mix of pedestrian and autos. A speed bump or two might make the interaction a little safer, but nowhere is Malibu more vibrant. Past places that Malibu most felt its “heart:” In the 1940s and 1950s, the Las Flores/PCH intersection, Sea Lion Restaurant and nearby court building. In the 1960s the pier, once most active with boating and fishing activity, and anchored at the old Alice’s restaurant site with the Malibu Sportsman Club and the Malibu Inn across the street. In the 1970s at the Colony Coffee Shop; in the 1980s the mix of Carlos & Pepe’s and Pierview on Carbon Beach, and the rest of the buzz of the growing PCH business district.
The results are in. If you drive safe and sober on PCH and be nice to the police people, it could help your career. Or, at least the opposite could mean the opposite.
The Malibu Feed Bin at Topanga was originally known as Potter’s Topanga Trading Post in the 1920s.
What else happened in 1986? The Coastal Commission approved the Malibu Colony Plaza, then not much more than a market, bank and coffee shop in separate buildings. Roy Crummer, who owned the property, called the proposed plaza “the start of a reasonably sized ‘downtown’ Malibu.” Also approved that year was the 78,000 square foot medical center on the site of Dr. Tom Hodges office/trailer off Stuart Ranch Road. The current complex that houses the city offices and Chamber of Commerce was originally approved for several medical facilities, a laboratory, pharmacy and coffee shop.
The new 424-overlay area code in the Malibu area does not yet have any designated prefixes. In the 310 area code, currently, 317, 456, 457, 506, 589, 359, 579, 774, 919 and 924 are all designated for Malibu.
How elite is the Pepperdine men’s sports department? Only four universities in the nation have won men’s national championships in five different sports the last 25 years: Stanford, USC, UCLA-and Pepperdine. Not even Notre Dame, Cal, Ohio State, Texas, Michigan or any other national sports powerhouse can compare with our little school in Malibu in this way, thanks to their recent national championship in men’s tennis (to go with baseball, golf, volleyball and water polo titles in recent years).
Think there are too many real estate agents now? And too many offices? In 1961, Malibu Realty alone had offices in seven different locations throughout Malibu.
There is a house in Malibu where, when you ring the doorbell, the owner inside can prompt a giant mechanical boar’s head to burst out of the front wall with a loud roar at the visitor a few feet away.
More from 20 years ago: The 30th annual Malibu Little League parade ran from the Sea Lion to Bluffs Park with opening ceremonies hosted by Judge John Merrick and actor Larry Hagman. The Little League had just rebuffed the Coastal Commission after its five-year attempt to kick the league off the bluff site. Ron Rindge published his new book, “The Rediscovery of the Pueblo de las Canoas,” which presented evidence that the early “Town of Canoes” was around the Malibu Lagoon. Regular Sunday shows of the Trancas Riders and Ropers took place at the equestrian arena just east of Trancas across the street from the end of Zuma Beach. The new theater group, Malibu Summerstage86, operated at the community center in the Civic Center complex.
There is a fantastic Web site, which has expansive, comprehensive information of Malibu’s lifestyle and its history: www.MalibuComplete.com. Complete indeed, with many photos. Creator Chuck Chriss has about 100 detailed sections of Malibu information; just about anything you would want to know in one amazing collection. Pretty much puts me out of business.
At this writing, the number of Malibu homes listed for sale for more than $10 million: 31. The number of homes listed for less than $1 million: three.
The first annual Malibu summer co-ed softball season recently concluded as a fantastic success. More than 100 adults on eight teams generated huge spirit on Sundays at Bluffs Park for a 10-game season, proving yet again we can live without a bowling alley.
The first year a single property ever sold for more than $1 million in Malibu? 1978.
Last November, locals Tyler Love and Keith Naylor, both 22, were killed on a motorcycle that was hit by a car on the highway just south of Sunset. Soon afterward, a makeshift memorial was set up on the rocks near the site of their deaths, overlooking the surf waves below. That memorial is still there, regularly stocked with fresh flower bouquets. Every night, many of the two-dozen candles burn. The memorial can be seen along the PCH, between the end of the Gladstone’s parking lot and the lifeguard tower.
Malibu has two separate residential locations called “Sea View Estates” and two town home locations called “Vista Pacifica.” Seems by those two designations that ocean viewing is, well, quite popular in Malibu! Oh, and by the way, there are two Ocean View Drives also, one with east-west addresses and one with north-south. There is also a Mar Vista street. We are capped out on ocean-viewing names-Pacific View and Sea Vista are also in use.
The July 4 fireworks-off-the-barge phenomenon originated a few doors from where I lived in 1983 on Broad Beach where the late Frank Wells ordered a fireworks show for a party at his beach house. The idea caught on but it was Wells alone who put on such displays for several years, until Danny Devito on Broad Beach and then others up and down the coast now do them regularly. (Just another enjoyable pastime, by the way, that the evil Coastal Commission threatens to terminate).
There is a house in Malibu that is built around a boxcar still sitting on the tracks from the Adamson Railroad 80 years ago.