Bali Hoi Polloi: Public Gains Entry at Geffen’s Beachhead

By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 27, 2005; C01

MALIBU, Calif., May 26 — The public was not exactly invited. But now it is at least allowed. After decades of resistance and a three-year legal battle, the pretty white gates shuttering a short pathway from the Pacific Coast Highway to the super-exclusive sands of Carbon Beach were opened Thursday through music and movie mogul David Geffen’s side yard.

With officials from four state agencies on hand, Steve Hoye of the nonprofit group Access for All — which led the fight to gain entry to the celebrity shores — cut a red ribbon as they toasted their victory with down-market sparkling wine and yellow cheddar cubes pierced with rather ordinary toothpicks.

“I want to thank David Geffen,” Hoye said without apparent irony, as a dolphin in the pewter sea surfaced right on cue. “He didn’t like this, but he came around, and we’re going to be the best neighbors we can possibly be. And I now declare this access way open.”

There was no sign of the Democratic fundraiser and co-founder of DreamWorks SKG on his four-lot compound, which is sheltered from the highway by towering ficus trees and features a tasteful if rather enormous Martha’s Vineyardy Cape Codder with gray shingles, white trim and copper gutters. There’s also a nine-car garage, swimming pool and deep wrap-around porches lined with plush chaise longues.

One of the dozen attendees of the event, Robert Garcia of the Center for Law in the Public Interest, wandered over by the beach wall and shouted, “Hello, David Geffen!” And then said, “See, nothing happened. But that’s what he’s been afraid of these years.”

From the beach, the only sign of life was Geffen’s workmen, busy touching up the paint on the main house. A call to Geffen’s spokesman, Andy Spahn, was answered with, as he put it, “a friendly no comment.”

To understand this watershed event is to contemplate the realpolitik of Malibu, whose city government joined with Geffen to fight public access to the beach.

Visitors to this seaside community often come expecting palm trees and a sun setting over bronzed surfer dudes and wild bikinis. Alas, most of Malibu’s shoreline is obstructed from view by an unbroken facade of the backs of multimillion-dollar weekend beach homes sporting threatening “No Parking” and “No Trespassing” signs, which Los Angeles Times columnist Patt Morrison coined Malibu’s Great Wall.

To call Malibu disappointing doesn’t quite capture it. It is, to paraphrase Zonker Harris in Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” comic, which has lampooned Geffen’s fight to keep the public off the beach, a bummer.

Beset by wildfire and mudslide, with a crowded, dangerous coastal highway dotted with a handful of seaside restaurants with long lines and oversauced fish, with its fouled beaches and leaky septic systems (every time it rains), Malibu is no Bali Hai. Of course it’s a different story if you own a home on the water, as do Sting, Steven Spielberg, Danny DeVito, Ted Danson, Dustin Hoffman, former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan and billionaires Eli Broad and Haim Saban.

Yes, there are public beaches, with world-famous waves, at Surfrider and Zuma, but the problem for the public is that a lot of the coast — so close, yet so far — is so hard to get to.

There are gates and chain link (and next door to Geffen, razor wire). To the north at Broad Beach, homeowners have hired private security guards who roam the beach in all-terrain vehicles and threaten to have arrested those who dare to place their towels on dry sand above the mean high tide line.

On Thursday at the Geffen access (which Hoye suggests might be named “Old Surfer Dude” walkway in honor of the “Doonesbury” character who rallied support for its opening), one of Geffen’s across-the-street neighbors braved the highway from her stuccoed one-bedroom rental unit and enjoyed the fresh air and crashing waves. Jayna Mims said she’s lived across the road for 12 years and has had to drive or walk a mile or two up or down the beach to gain access.

“I’m really excited,” Mims said, confessing: “It was frustrating living so close to the beach. You could smell it. You could hear it. But you couldn’t touch it.” Asked why she didn’t just ask her beachside neighbors for access, Mims laughed and said, “I don’t know any of these people.”

The reasons for this controversy are legal and complicated. It’s real estate, people.

Years ago, when a beach house owner such as Geffen wanted to alter his property or join existing lots, he was forced to give public access in exchange for building permits. The Supreme Court in 1987 said that was an unfair “taking” of private property. Today, beach home owners instead “offer” to trade access for permits (so it is not a taking — get it?). These offers expire after 21 years unless a state or municipal or nonprofit group agrees to manage the walkways. In Malibu, the local and county governments declined to manage Geffen’s, so it was up to Hoye and his volunteers to press ahead.

In surrendering the lawsuit, Geffen agreed to reimburse Hoye and the California attorney general $300,000 in legal fees. The gates will be opened again on Memorial Day, and thereafter seven days a week, from dawn to dusk. Team Geffen argued that the walkway, without parking or toilets, would be overrun with litter, vandals and trespassers (which would make it like the rest of Malibu).

“But look, it’s never been about parking or toilets,” Hoye said. “There are beaches up and down the coast without either. That’s paranoia. It’s always been about privilege. And the bottom line is, I don’t think the public deserves to be kept off beaches that we all own and love.”

As it stands, members of the public will be allowed to lay their beach blankets within 10 feet of Geffen’s back porch. It is, even on this gray day, a sublime piece of real estate. You can understand why one man wanted to keep it private. You can also understand why not.