With Malibu’s image as a surf city—as Planning Commissioner John Mazza once put it, “where surf culture started”—it comes as no surprise that Malibu has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The National Park Service’s (NPS) Keeper of the National Register appointed the 160-acre area “roughly along Pacific Coast Highway from E [east] of Malibu Pier to Malibu Colony privacy fence”—known as Malibu Historic District— to the list as of Jan. 29.
The listing is eligible for “National Park Service-administered federal preservation tax credits” and other grant programs to protect and preserve the designated area.
Malibu Historic District includes popular destinations, including the Historic Malibu Pier, Surfrider Beach, Malibu Lagoon State Beach and surf breaks at First, Second and Third Points.
This is the city’s third listing; previous two listings in the register include one for the Chumash Humaliwo village and another for the Malibu Adamson House.
Nonprofit organization Sea of Clouds, which is dedicated to “recognizing and protecting America’s special coastal places,” first pushed for the nomination in 2015, and secured letter of support from City Council through a unanimous, 4-0 vote at an April 2016 meeting.
“If successful, this would represent the first mainland surfing area protected under a legal mandate,” Sea of Clouds Executive Director Michael Blum said in his pitch to council.
According to the Sea of Clouds website, the organization received more than 550 endorsements from a variety of people, including elected officials, organization members and individuals.
“From Barcelona’s Camp Nou to Yosemite’s Camp 4, people gathered together in sport have created places of history, culture, community and tradition,” Blum said in a published statement. “A jewel of surfing like Malibu is no different … This project documents a part of our broad coastal history, an indelible part of California’s history, and certainly of surfing history itself.”
Malibu local and California Senator Henry Stern tweeted about his “hometown surf break (literally) making history” and then went on to thank those involved in the process.
The Malibu Historic District joins a list of more than 90,000 other properties on the National Register list.
To be eligible for a nomination, a property must meet certain criteria, including whether it’s old enough to be considered “historic” and if it remains unchanged for the most part. In addition, the place must have some sort of historical importance. The nominations can be submitted by anyone (in this case, it was Sea of Clouds) to the California Historic Preservation Office. Once approved, the nomination heads to NPS in Washington, D.C., for a final decision.
In an email to The Malibu Times, National Register of Historic Places historian Paul R. Lusignan said, “The historic district represents the first successful National Register listing for a site based around the theme of recreational surfing … The nomination provided interesting insight into a relatively little known aspect of twentieth century recreational history, or at least little known beyond the confines of Southern California and the surfing community.”
Lusignan went on to state that NPS was happy to consider “innovative” nominations—ones that aren’t necessarily the traditional historic building.
“Surfrider Beach has long been a destination for beach goers and surfers alike while acting as the catalyst destination for the Southern California surfing community in shaping its surf and beach culture seen on the worldwide stage,” Mayor Skylar Peak said, in a statement to Sea of Clouds. “ … The district honors a generation who created surfing history here and whose legacy you see today surfing at First Point. I’m excited to celebrate the listing with our residents, other Angelenos and the world community of surfing. Aloha!”
According to the nonprofit, a dedication ceremony for the new designation will be held sometime this summer.
This story has been updated with a comment from the National Park Service.