Making a dramatic u-turn, the California State Parks Department has canceled a four-year-old lease to a developer that gave him the right to convert the 46 historic cabins at Crystal Cove State Park, in Orange County, into a $35 million luxury resort.

A broad coalition of local citizens and environmental groups overcame seemingly insurmountable legal and financial obstacles in convincing state officials to negotiate the termination of the private concession contract. The Coastal Conservancy made it possible for State Parks to buy back the lease by picking up the $2 million tab.

The contract was signed during the administration of former governor Pete Wilson, “at a time of different economic realities and different perceptions of the privatization of state parks,” explained State Parks Deputy Director Mary Wright. She acknowledged that, given the overwhelming public opposition, it “clearly did not reflect community interest on the coast.”

The surprising turnaround may signal a shift away from the trend toward privatization of public parklands, according to David Beckman, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, who represented Defend the Bay, an Orange County advocacy group, in the Crystal Cove controversy.

It had seemed unstoppable, a done deal. In 1997, State Parks had signed a 60-year lease with Crystal Cove Preservation Partners, headed by Michael Freed, who wanted to turn the vintage cottages at this secluded public beach into overnight guest cabins that would rent for $375 and up per night. He also proposed to build a swimming pool, a public boardwalk, and to provide other amenities.

Local residents were outraged. They had not been consulted. No public hearings had been held before the lease was signed. Their protests, however, fell on deaf ears. By January this year, the project was well into the design stage.

Crystal Cove lies at the heart of the 2,700-acre Crystal Cove State Park, which extends along 3.25 miles of coast between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, offering a respite for the eyes of travelers emerging from long stretches of urban sprawl along the Coast Highway. Purchased in 1979 from the Irvine Company for $32.6 million, the parkland reaches to bluffs and beaches, and into the wooded canyons of the San Joaquin Hills. For miles on the ocean side of the road the landscape is free of human structures. Offshore is the Irvine Coast Marine Life Refuge. But on the inland side luxury homes and townhouses invade the coastal scrub of the rolling hills.

If you turn east from Highway 1 just north of the famous Shake Shack and park in the Los Trancos lot, you will find a path that descends to a tunnel leading under the highway and to the mouth of the creek at Crystal Cove. Once you’ve seen it, you will understand why local citizens fought, and continue to fight passionately, for a voice in shaping this park’s future.

The cove beach is wide, bracketed by rocky headlands. The sand is white, the water gentle—so gentle that dolphins come here to give birth. Along the bluffs at the back of the beach is a picturesque collage of cottages. Wind chimes tinkle from the eaves of a blue cabin, an artist’s studio. On its wall is a clock that always reads ten minutes to four; beneath it a sign explains: “Crystal Cove Standard Time.”

These cottages seem to have grown organically, accreting with a new deck or bay here, a new wing patched in there, much the way driftwood castles are built in the sand, without expectations of permanence. Today, Crystal Cove is the last remaining example of a former southern California beach scene. Coming here for the first time, many visitors feel they have stepped into the past.

Early in the last century, the Irvine Company began to rent land to vacationers who built beach cabins. Between the 1920s and 1940s many of these were expanded and formalized as both seasonal and year-round residences. A Hollywood producer who leased the cove for South Seas films left some sets, and these were turned into houses. Eventually the “beach community” of 46 cottages became a permanent feature of the Orange County coastline.

In 1979, when State Parks bought the park, the beach colony was designated as the Crystal Cove Historic District and was added to the National Register of Historic Places as “the last intact example of vernacular beach architecture” on the southern California coast.

A Shocking Development

Not until the night of January 18, 2001, did State Parks officials or the prospective developer realize just how local people felt about this place and its proposed future. That was the night of the “informational” community meeting State Parks called to “explain” details of the Preservation Partners’ plan and describe the public access amenities and preservation features that were to be part of it.

Parks Director Rusty Areias wanted to clear up any misconceptions about the resort’s effect on public access. Freed came ready to explain that although 75 guest rooms would be created in the cottages, which he would restore, the public would have complete access to the beach, a restaurant, an interpretive center staffed by a marine biologist, and a 132-room youth hostel.

The outcome of that meeting was as surprising to State Parks and its lessee as news of the lease had been to the community four years earlier.
Outside the auditorium of Lincoln Elementary School in Corona del Mar, tables had been set up and stacked with leaflets. People were holding up signs. “Listen well to citizens’ pleas, we won’t take fait accomplis” one warned. “No resort!” others proclaimed. The overflow crowd of more than 600 people shouted down official speakers. When Freed tried to explain where the public amenities were to be, someone yelled: “Put them in Riverside!”

Opponents pointed to several “fatal flaws” in the concession plan, including the proposed overnight rates, which would be beyond the means of most park visitors; and they expressed fears that the general public would be discouraged from using the beach after the resort was built, no matter what was being promised now. They said State Parks should not be involved in the luxury resort business and contended that the concession plan violated the 1982 Park General Plan, which had been drawn up with extensive citizen participation. They demanded a chance to create their own proposal.

Soon after, State Parks announced: “We are looking at alternatives.”

Enter Joan Irvine Smith

The solid front of opposition demonstrated at this meeting had coalesced after years of activism by residents of the beach colony and nearby communities and by organizations that included the Sierra Club, League for Coastal Protection, and CoastKeeper. That coalition had gained substantial clout just days before the meeting, when Joan Irvine Smith, heiress to the Irvine Ranch, announced her opposition to the resort.

Smith, founder of the Orange County Art Museum, is the great-granddaughter of James Irvine, whose vast land holdings, some 120,000 acres, extended from Cleveland National Forest to the ocean. Now 67, she and her mother, Athalie Irvine Clark, had long battled in court against the privatization of land family members had allotted for parks.

Fresh in Smith’s mind was the thought of the bayfront property her grandfather, James Irvine Sr., had donated to the City of Newport Beach in 1946, a year before his death. Although he intended it to be a park, it is now the site of the exclusive Balboa Bay Club. In 1973, fearing that Crystal Cove might also be privatized if State Parks bought it, she had opposed the Irvine Company’s proposed sale of three miles of shoreline to the state for $7.1 million. “The state had acquired 2.5 acres in Huntington Beach and a private condo stands there now, the Huntington Pacific,” she explained. It was after that court challenge was resolved that State Parks bought the parklands, paying $32.5 million.

Smith’s entry into the fray gave resort opponents the political and media attention they needed. At the January 18 community meeting, the audience chanted: “Let Joan speak!” When she stood up to do so, her basic message was: “We must keep the park for the people.”

During the weeks after that meeting, strategy sessions were held at Smith’s ranch in San Juan Capistrano. Resort opponents agreed to put differences aside until they could defeat the resort project. On February 5 Smith talked with Paul Morabito, a Laguna Beach resident recently appointed to the seven-member Coastal Conservancy. On February 8 Smith and Morabito, a fundraiser for Governor Gray Davis, talked with the governor.

A week later, on February 16, Governor Davis announced a “breakthrough agreement.” His press release stated that Secretary Mary Nichols was asking the Coastal Conservancy to provide up to $2 million for buying out Preservation Partners, adding: “This truly is a triple-win. It is responsive to the local community, expands environmental protection, and reimburses the developer for costs incurred up to now.”
Theoretically, the Coastal Conservancy could have denied the governor’s request: $2 million was a lot—22 percent of the $9 million in undesignated funds the Conservancy had available for a variety of public access and other projects. Spending that amount on Crystal Cove would mean, for instance, that there would be less to spend in Mendocino and Los Angeles Counties, where public access to the coast is scarce. However, Conservancy members saw merit in the expenditure. Like other unique coastal areas recently protected for the public and wildlife at great expense, Crystal Cove was priceless. In addition, spending that $2 million now “averts litigation that could tie up state resources for years,” pointed out Sara Wan, who as chair of the Coastal Commission is a Conservancy member.

On March 22, the Conservancy met in Laguna Beach and the principals summed up their case one more time.

Laura Davick, founder of the Alliance to Rescue Crystal Cove—her parents met there, and bought a house there when she was one year old—said that “within a ten-mile radius of Crystal Cove, there are 15 luxury resorts, 4,000 luxury hotel rooms, and another 1,600 in planning. That’s enough. Crystal Cove should be for the people.”

Jeannette Merrilees, representing the Sierra Club and Save Crystal Cove, argued that “a flawed process led to this. That point has been central in the Sierra Club’s four-year campaign opposing the resort. We look forward to participating in a public process.” Buying back the lease “will say that we don’t tolerate a contract that gives away a state park.”

David Beckman of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Defend the Bay asserted that termination of the concession contract represented a positive precedent for the state and potentially the nation. He told the Conservancy: “You are striking a blow for the right approach, the right direction for this state.”

When a speaker asked that the Conservancy “put the final nail in the coffin” of the resort project, chair Gary Hernandez deadpanned: “We like to think of ourselves as glue, between State Parks and others, in this case.” The vote to grant $2 million to buy out Preservation Partners was unanimous.

What’s Next

Citizens had triumphed, but the forces were with them. Since the fight began, the administration and legislature in Sacramento had changed, the economic climate had improved, and more funds had been made available for coastal conservation. All that, plus the high-profile advocacy of Joan Irvine Smith, helped to turn the tide.

Having saved the Historic District from privatization, the next challenge for state officials, local residents, and environmental groups is to agree on its future and find the necessary financial resources to bring it about. “Though it’s clear what everyone does not want,” State Parks’ Mary Wright observed, “what will come out of the planning process is not clear.”

Smith would like to see some of the cottages put to use as a retreat for artists, scientists, and screenwriters. The county sheriff would like to use some of them and the beach in his program to train deputies to enforce regulations that protect tidepools. Others want an environmental education center or a hostel, and some want none of the above. For many, it’s the beach that matters most.

Crystal Cove residents, who had fought off eviction attempts since 1979, have agreed to move out by July 8, after one final Fourth of July celebration. State Parks has pledged to work with citizens to complete a preservation and public use plan for the Historic District, to protect the cultural and natural values of the cove, and to provide public access and recreational opportunities. Concerned parties are demanding that State Parks institute an open and fully accessible public planning process.

As a first step, State Parks officials have proposed a nine-month planning process. It began with a public workshop April 26. About 200 people attended, including a strong contingent of State Parks officials from Sacramento, who outlined plans to fence off the vacated cottages while reuse is being considered, and to protect them with lifeguards and rangers. As for citizen input, many wished to speak, and the time allotted proved insufficient for everyone to be heard. Controversy about reuse is likely as different futures are considered in the months ahead.

Should the cottages be fortified so they will stand for many years, or should they simply be maintained as residents have maintained them, and used for public benefit until natural elements bring them down? There’s a water quality issue to deal with as well: some of the septic tanks may be polluting the beach. And, no matter what is finally decided, funding will have to be secured.

Meanwhile, Crystal Cove will continue as a peaceful remnant of what now seems to us a simpler past, when the informal, random, intimate, and familiar were the rule of the day. That’s precisely the “feel” many of us seek when we visit the beach. And the beach is ours to visit.

Marc Beyeler has managed numerous projects during his nearly 20 years on the staff of the Coastal Conservancy. Among these is Crystal Cove.