Point Dume prosperity has historical roots
By Rick Wallace/Special to The Malibu Times
There were no homes on Point Dume in 1925. There were no horses. There was nary a tree or bush; it was a barren, wind-swept peninsula. And then came a road.
The Roosevelt Highway was planned as a straight line from the shoreline at Paradise Cove to the edge of current day Zuma Beach. When construction was completed on Malibu’s first public road four years later in 1929, it sealed a fate for Point Dume. A fate that now means riches for its inhabitants.
Point Dume is Malibu’s only sizable neighborhood on the beach side of Pacific Coast Highway. That one fact alone makes it possibly the most coveted location in town. Some Realtors will tell you that more buyers inside and out of Malibu want to live on Point Dume — and nowhere else in Malibu — than any other place locally. The key reason is the location of the highway. What that means in this new year is that the average home sale on the Point is now more than $1.5 million.
Traditionalists mourn the loss of horses, corrals and trails down the ravines. But now, easy, safe bike riding and walking through level streets, insulated from the Pacific Coast Highway bustle, more than compensates for it. Additionally, the Point grows more stately through the years. Monterey has its 17-mile drive. Someday the Point may similarly lure its share of gawkers, drawn by its shoreline views, the Headlands Park, and picturesque estates.
For the wise souls who plopped down $35,000 in the 1960s to live in a small house on a flat acre in Malibu’s “ghetto,” the future has always been bright. With every upturn of the market over the last 40 years has come a disproportionate rise in values on the Point.
In the 1970s, a rock legend took to reclusion in the middle of the neighborhood. In 1984, a top entertainer paid a staggering $9 million for a bluff-top, gated estate and since then, the opportunity for upward appreciation has continued unabated.
Before Malibu’s first road to Point Dume, there was a railroad. The Rindge railroad wound onto the Point, passing through the current school site to Cliffside. A 1923 United States Supreme Court decision in favor of Los Angeles County against the Rindges forced a road by eminent domain to be built through Malibu. Fortunately, the Roosevelt Highway, and Pacific Coast Highway 20 years later, avoided intrusion onto the peninsula.
Dume Drive was the original path onto the Point, naturally following the saddle of the massive sand dune, still appreciated for its excellent geological integrity and distance from brushfire threat in the hills.
Beach keys for private gates might as well be minted in gold. On the Point, 28 homes sold last year for an average price of just under $1.5 million. That does not include the five bluff estates that boost the overall average to more than $2 million. Two estates alone, with no ocean view, brought well over that number.
It is typical that about 33 homes sell each year on the Point, where about 450 homes exist. It is still possible to get in for under $1 million, but time seems to be running out. For that kind of price expect a fixer home, probably under an acre, with no view.
The current median average is also close to $1.5 million. Last year, 11 homes sold for more than $2 million while about eight traded at less than $1 million. Inventory, like all of Malibu, is very thin. At this writing, only 20 homes were listed for sale, about half of those major bluff properties with big price tags.
More history about this rich piece of land can be found in a new book, authored by Judge John J. Merrick and Ronald L. Rindge. “Maritime Stories of Pt. Dume and Malibu” can be purchased at the Malibu Lagoon Museum, with excerpts featured in The Malibu Times throughout this winter.
Rick Wallace of the Coldwell Banker Fred Sands office has been a Realtor in Malibu for 13 years. He can be reached at RICKMALIBUrealestate.com.