High Stakes

Traffic and development continue to dominate the Malibu election discussion.

In a recent editorial, Malibu Times editor Arnold York wrote: 

"One of the problems I always have with city council elections is that there are truly not many issues on the table. I don’t think there is anyone in Malibu that endorses rampant development nor can I ever remember anyone advocating it. Of course, what I might call normal expansion, you might call rampant development."

One reason we haven't seen rampant development in the Civic Center area is because there have been too many constraints to overcome. Many local activists have expressed the concern that the city's new wastewater treatment plant will soon remove developers' biggest obstacle. 

This is an official City of Malibu map of past and future development in the Malibu Civic Center area. M is for sale, O sold last year, the owners of S and L sued the city over Measure R, and Q is already approved to become a 110,000-square-foot shopping center. These properties represent a lot of potential change for a small area.

Another reason is that the impact of development is cumulative. Unless there's a massive project that brings large numbers of the community together in opposition, bit by bit development—often described as "piecemealing," can go unnoticed. A setback variance here, a height variance there, and before anyone realizes what's happened we find ourselves with the Great Wall of Malibu instead of a view of the coast. It's hard to know when it happened. One day the open space is there, the next it isn't.

Along large stretches of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu development is so dense one would never know the ocean is right on the other side of the road. The situation is somewhat better on the western end of town, but the proliferation of massive landscape plantings, like ficus hedges, block the view as efficiently as eastern Malibu's garage doors and massive houses.

It seems to be an unspoken law of the universe that once a city is established it seeks to grow. Cities have planning departments not conservation departments, and planners have much in common with hair stylists—always trying to give you a cutting edge (so to speak) haircut when all you want is the ends trimmed. However, hair grows back, the environment doesn’t. And the burden of environmental oversight in Malibu has remained the responsibility of the citizens, as the city officials wield their metaphorical scissors in what often seems a determined effort to give Malibu the planner's version of a mullet.

If all one had to go on was the strip of Malibu that lines PCH one would not give these "27 miles of scenic beauty" a second glance.

What does it say about eastern Malibu that beach access has been systematically reduced from this:

This 1950 aerial photo of Malibu Road from the collection of the Los Angeles Public Library shows modest houses and long stretches of open shoreline.

To this?

Today, the same stretch of coast is wall-to-wall houses. Every time a permit is issued for a rebuild, the replacement house is bigger than the one it replaced, as developers attempt to push the limits of the city's building codes to the breaking point. Yes, property owners have rights, but the city has a responsibility, too, not just to ensure that plans meet code requirements but that they comply fully with local coastal planning requirements WITHOUT excessive variances.

That wall of houses leaves little room for the actual beach. Visitors who navigate their way to east Malibu beach accessways get to enjoy a patch of perpetually damp sand under a row of majestically cantilevered decks. 

Oh look! A public beach accessway!

Alas, the illusion that the stairway leads to the splendors of nature is rapidly dispelled.

You do, however, get to enjoy a worm's eye view of the underneath of other people's houses. That monster in the distance was under construction when I took this photo. It replaced a modest house that did not intrude dramatically into the ocean.

 Malibu journalist Hans Laetz once described Malibu’s current system of balances like this:

 “If the current system is working, it is only because a few dedicated folks are continuously playing CEQA [California Environmental Quality Act] whack-a-mole down at City Hall.”

Even on a perfect day when the water is clear and clean and the sun is golden, and the historic Malibu Pier looks like a picture postcard the vision is marred by Malibu's version of urban sprawl. Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

Here's a closer look. Pacific Coast Highway turned into a wall of stucco one project at a time. 

This is the same view in the 1940s. The long white building was the shed for the Ridge railroad.

Grassroots efforts have curtailed many major Malibu projects, ranging from the marina and the freeway, to the county's plans for a city of 200,000, but residents just don't have the resources to go up against every cash grab proposed by shortsighted development interests. 

Property owners have the right to develop their property, but they aren't entitled to excessive variances that allow them to impinge on public views and key environmental resources, and that sense of  entitlement is something that has been overly relied on for decades. 

The main objection to the so-called "Whole Foods in the Park" shopping center development was the number of variances granted to the developer, including the infamous vertical landscaping in place of open space. As  projects emerge for new Civic Center development will the variances for height and density granted earlier developers end up becoming expected entitlements? The Malibu Bay Company's "76,000-square-foot "Sycamore Village" is planned for the property on the corner of Stuart Ranch Road and Civic Center Way. The 110,000 square-foot La Paz shopping center already has its permits. The 3.5-acre Knapp property sold last year. It can support 23,000 square feet of development and isn't subject to Measure R. The 6.5-acre Ioki property, next to city hall, is currently on the market and could be developed with up to 42,000 square feet. Change is coming. Will this part of the community ultimately end up looking like an extension of Malibu's Great Wall?   

Are we going to end up with more of this?

This monster was forced through right before cityhood in the late 1980s. It's a prime example of what Malibu shouldn't be, but that doesn't stop developers from dreaming up similar projects.

Where did this thing come from and why did anyone think it was a good idea? The county isn't to blame for this one—it cropped up recently. When I was small child my dad used to take me to to buy African violets here for Mother's Day. It was Bowman Nursery back then, a private house with a greenhouse behind it where hundreds of flowers grew in neat purple and pink profusion. It changed from a small empty house to a giant empty office building seemingly overnight. It's a double shame, since it is right next door to the Malibu Synagogue and Jewish Center, a beautiful building that is designed to blend into the landscape.

Or can we maintain the qualities described in the city's Mission Statement that make Malibu a "unique land and marine environment and residential community" ?

Once one escapes from Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu really is 27 miles of scenic beauty, or at least maybe 19 miles of scenic beauty and seven or eight of obnoxious beach houses and commercial development. The two biggest challenges for Malibu moving forward will be to prevent "infilling," or changes to the city's zoning that permit higher density development and out of scale overdevelopment, and finding ways to retire commercial property and maintain open space.

Maybe the question we should be asking this year's city council candidates isn't what they stand for but what they have stood against.

That's the last empty lot on PCH in eastern Malibu, the last glimpse of ocean and horizon. Is it destined to become another section of the Great Wall, or are there other alternatives for Malibu's future?

It is difficult to focus on local issues when all of the attention is on a national election that resembles a cross between Monty Python and a post-apocalyptic horror film, but this November 8 Malibu residents will elect a city council that will weigh in on many key development issues. Let's make sure that the people we select are committed to the Malibu Mission Statement, so Malibu doesn't accidentally end up resembling a suburb of this place:

The Write Stuff

It looks peaceful, but that is not an ordinary Malibu sunrise, it was the morning of the 2007 Corral Fire, and a reminder that Malibu can switch from paradise to inferno in a heartbeat. Malibu's elected officials may be called on to deal with fire, flood, earthquake or storm, in addition to every day issues. The Malibu City Council election isn't a popularity contest or a game show contest. The newly formed City of Malibu was nearly bankrupted in its infancy by the catastrophic 1993 Old Topanga Fire, which raced through Malibu leaving devastation in its wake. The Corral Fire was our most recent city disaster Many newer Malibu residents have never experienced the rougher side of life on this coast. Our elected officials always have to be prepared for the worst. Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

Malibu certainly must never become a locality for the get-rich-schemes of honkey-tonk promoters who have nothing more than a yawning interest in civic pride—or the scavenger who sees a chance to trade off the name for the sake of a few dollars.

There is no better time than right now to face the fact that we must organize to achieve unity of purpose in all our civic endeavors. If we wait too long, we may well be too late.

—Malibu Times editorial, October 11, 1946

Dear Reader,

If you had to go by the letters to the editor sections of the local newspapers you would never guess Malibu’s election season has shifted into high gear and that the battle for votes in the six person race for three seats on the Malibu City Council is raging in the aisles of the grocery stores and at the farmers market. 

Former Malibu Surfside News editor Anne Soble often received so many election season letters that they would spill over from page 4 to fill every empty space, sometimes ending up jostling with the classifieds for space on the last page.

The war of words has been waged in every Malibu city council election. Why is it so quiet out there this time? With the exception of curmudgeonly grumbles from a couple of octogenarian town elders and a polite epistle praising the candidates for their decorum, the silence on campaign issues is deafening. 

Malibu's night skies attract stargazers from all over Los Angeles, like this group of amateur astronomers at Malibu Bluffs Park, but light pollution is beginning to impact the view. A dark skies ordinance is one of several environmental campaign issues this year. Activists would also like to see Malibu tighten loopholes in its Local Coastal Program to better protect all natural resources. Which candidates are most likely to support this endeavor? Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

Perhaps the rise of social media is to blame for the silence in the letters column, although even the online comment section of the one local paper with that feature is surprisingly empty. There are the usual anonymous developers sparing half-heartedly with a handful of local fire eaters, but that's about it. 

Readers of the current Surfside News can perhaps be excused for not knowing who the newest editor is or how to reach her. The paper restructured recently and has brought in many new faces. But everyone knows where to find the Malibu Times’ editor, Arnold York.

One of the candidates forums included a discussion of sea level rise that focused primarily on artificial reefs as a potential solution for sand loss, but what about other sea level issues like salt water intrusion, tidal surge, and wave damage? And how about issues like coastal armoring, view corridors and public access? Photo @ 2016 S. Guldimann

Before Malibu became a city the opinion sections were a key forum for local issues—sometimes the only opportunity for residents to have their concerns heard. And while politicians often waffle on about "progress," some of the earliest Malibu letters to the editor could be dusted off and recycled today. 

“We all want Malibu to be the most beautiful community possible, yet how can it be with sudden death racing down our highway?” asked Nella Archer in a letter to the editor of the Malibu Times dated January 27, 1947.

Safety on Pacific Coast Highway has been a major concern dating back to the era when the road was Roosevelt Highway. Some of the earliest issue-based letters to the editor of the original Malibu Times, which began covering local news in 1946, pertain to highway safety. It's not surprising that it's a major campaign issue once again. Photo: Malibu Library

“My eyes are opened now to needs which are greater than just hotels,” a letter written by developer Esther Sterkin states. “We must have a complete resort community where those who will, may, escape from cities, and raise their families close to nature. For these permanent, solid citizens we must have schools, churches, theatre, shops, recreation centers for our children (small and adolescent), and all the other necessities for a high-level community...Then, of course, the resort buildings and facilities, gorgeous landscaping, exclusive sumptuous hotels, modern beach cottages, and apartment houses, also housing divisions for the men who would be employed in the area...I am impatient to see a beginning."

Shopping malls, hotels, recreation facilities, low-incoming housing? Sound familiar? Except this letter was written in 1950.

Development and highway safety remain two of Malibu's top issues, but there are more recent concerns—things that early residents could never have imagined: escalating issues with homeless and drug use; the impact of short-term home rentals and the one-night-only party crowd they attract; drug rehab facilities that transform neighborhoods into hospital zones; global warming and sea level rise; and the estimated 15 million visitors who flocked to Malibu's beaches and mountains in the past year.

The proposed "Whole Foods in the Park" shopping mall planned for this quiet field provided the flashpoint for the grassroots Measure R movement. All of the candidates are running on a slow growth platform. However, there are major differences: three candidates actively participated in and helped lead the grassroots Preserve Malibu movement, a fourth wasn't involved in the campaign but supported Measure R,  the fifth appears not to have publicly stated their views on the ballot initiative, and the sixth vehemently opposed the measure. Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

When Malibu was fighting for cityhood, the letters column in both papers was a major battleground that sometimes spilled over into the Los Angeles Times’ letters section. It was also sometimes a literary experience. You might find a pithy response from mystery writer Ross Thomas, a politely devastating retort by legendary screenwriter Philip Dunne, or a dryly humorous opinion penned by actor turned journalist Paul Mantee.

Rodenticide and pesticide use in Malibu remain a major issue, with activists pushing hard for a citywide ban. While all of the candidates have stated that they oppose pesticide use, which candidates have a history of supporting the ban? Which are most likely to support the ordinance if elected? Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

Ross Thomas was so quiet in person that you had to listen hard to hear him. It was worth the effort. Before settling down to the mystery novelist’s life he had traveled the world: Africa, Asia, Europe. He’d lived in London and Manhattan, rubbed elbows with the entire literary scene of the 1960s. His first novel Cold War Swap, won the Edgar Allen Poe award for best first mystery novel in 1966. As an activist and letter writer he was fierce and deadly.

Malibu is nearly 23 miles long and includes more coastline than any other municipality in Southern California, but it's this tiny section of land that is ground zero for local controversy. Critics have warned that more than one million square feet of development could eventually be squeezed into the Civic Center area. The fate of many of the red parcels, zoned Commercial, could be decided by the city council members elected in November. With the Civic Center sewer under construction, some development interests are already pushing for mixed use development, which would increase density. The triangular section at the center—Legacy Park—is the only undeveloped parcel that is not in play. 

Philip Dunne, also a quiet man, was a ferocious fighter for social justice on a national level—he co-founded the Committee for the First Amendment with William Wyler and John Huston, and fought for the rights of the entertainment industry professionals who found themselves on the Hollywood Blacklist. He also fought for small local issues, including Malibu cityhood, which he passionately supported. 

Paul Mantee was another energetic Malibu activist. Beneath the tough guy exterior lived a keen intelligence and a wry wit. He wrote a column in the Malibu Times for years and could always be counted on for a witty response on local issues in the letters section. 

Yard signs and mailers are all useful in an election, but letters go much further, offering a forum for questions and observations. In a year when everyone is being snowed under in a blizzard of local, state, and national election mailers, letters offer a forum that may actually reach that rare and elusive being, the undecided voter.  

Malibu Bluffs Park Open Space, top, and the newly acquired Trancas Fields, are both hot topics. The candidates elected next month will help determine the future for both parks.

The 19th century French novelist and social activist Emile Zola changed history with a letter. He was threatened with a year in prison and a 3000-Franc fine for a letter he wrote in support of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a French war hero who was charged with treason. Zola was forced to flee to England to escape the fallout, but the letter, famously beginning with the accusation "j’accuse," generated a groundswell of support for the wrongly imprisoned Dreyfus, and ultimately changed history.

Malibu is a small town at heart, one that comes together when faced with adversity, like the 1979 Big Rock landslide that closed PCH for months. It's helpful to remember that during campaign season. Image: Evening Outlook

If you, dear reader, feel strongly about this election, if you have questions for the candidates, or comments to make on their campaign promises, or a response to a letter someone else wrote, take a minute to act on that thought. Let’s keep the letter writing tradition alive in Malibu. Who knows, it could even change the course of history. Malibu election outcomes are sometimes decided by just a few votes. Your letter could be the catalyst that decides an undecided voter.

Why not write a letter to an editor today? 

Malibu Times: agyork@malibutimes.com or emily@malibutimes.com

Malibu Surfside News: Lauren Finkler: lauren@malibusurfsidenews.com

And, as always, feel free to leave us your thoughts in the comments section. But be nice. The spirit of May Knight Rindge is keeping a watchful eye on all of us. 

By Any Other Name

Place names may seem an unlikely repository for history but they can hold a surprising amount of information about the locations they describe and the people responsible for selecting and bestowing the names. Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

Here at The Malibu Post we're not convinced that the bard is right about that whole rose-by-any-other-name idea. Suppose, for example, that 19th century Malibu Rancho owner Frederick Hastings Rindge discarded the Chumash-derived name and rechristened the old Topanga Malibu Sequit Spanish Land Grant “Zumaland,” “Billowbay,” “Midocean,” “Happyland,” "Archangel,""Ozone," “Puritan,” or Hopehaven,” hypothetical names he proposed for the Malibu City of Tomorrow in his book Happy Days in Southern California. What would that have meant for Malibu? 

It seems unlikely that the Malibu Rum Company would have got off the ground if Malibu Rancho owner Frederick Hastings Rindge had opted to trade Malibu's historic name for one of his inspirations like Puritan. And it's probably safe to say there would never have been a Happyland Barbie or a Chevy Ozone. 

We were discussing local place names the other day at The Malibu Post because the Malibu City Council recently took the first step towards a discussion on naming protocols, following an offer by resident Brian Strange to donate $1 million in matching funds for a skatepark in memory of his son, much loved Malibu native and extreme athlete Johnny Strange, who died in a wingsuit accident in Switzerland in 2015.

Councilmember Joan House pointed out that naming rights can be a surprisingly complicated matter, and she’s absolutely right. Whether it involves naming something new or renaming something old, the process inevitably sparks debate.

The Malibu community was shattered by the death of 13-year-old Emily Shane on Pacific Coast Highway near the intersection of Heathercliff in 2010. However, while there was a tremendous sense of shared sorrow, not everyone supported the Shane family’s push to rename Heathercliff Road after her.


Residents and businesses were dismayed at the potential cost and confusion the name change could cause. Some expressed concern at the precedent the change would set, fearing that the unintended consequences could transform the community into a city of the dead. A compromise was reached that involved adding Emily’s name to the Heathercliff sign but not officially changing the name of the street, leading to confusion for visitors, but not requiring residents to reorder their lives.

Here is a Google maps image of the intersection renamed to commemorate Emily Shane. However, the name does not appear on the actual map.

Homeowners on De Buttes Terrace, which was named by and for pioneers Marianne and Edward Delaplane De Butts, petitioned the Malibu City Council in 2006 to change the name of their street for a very different reason. They sought to rename the road out of concern that their children would be the butt of jokes.

I grew up reading Marianne De Butts' column in the Malibu Times. It was called "Squeaky Mesa" and featured the family's quirky menagerie of animals, including the eponymous dog Squeaky, and a lost lifestyle that involved growing vegetables, chopping wood to heat the house, and pumping water from the ranch well.


The same people that couldn't bear the name De Butts didn't want to call the place Squeaky Mesa when councilmember Ken Kearsley, who opposed the change, suggested it as an alternative. They wanted “Paradise View Way” but failed to convince the council that their choice had sufficient historic significance. In fact, Paradise was the name chosen by developers to replace the historic name Banning Harbor in the mid 20th century. In the end, the 16 property owners on De Butts Terrace opted to rechristen the road Murphy Way, after the family of film director Dudley Murphy who owned several Malibu-area properties, including the celebrated Holiday House Inn, now Geoffrey’s Restaurant, and Cold Creek Preserve, one of the most pristine and undisturbed portions of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Here's Banning Harbor in 1899, long before it was renamed Paradise Cove. The original name came from the fact that Phineas Banning (1830 – 1885) the larger than life entrepreneur who made a fortune in shipping and staging, used the cove to replenish his ships' supplies of water from Ramirez creek and to harvest fire wood.

Perhaps its not surprising that Fauquier Road, also named by Marianne and Edward  De Buttes in the 1950s, was changed decades ago to Winding Way.

If developers and the occasional homeowner sometimes exhibit the sensitivities of a Victorian maiden aunt over unsuitable names, they also seem to have a weakness for a sort of highly ornate and somewhat fussy Victorian romanticism, which is why we have streets with names like Heathercliff, Boniface, Selfridge, Wandermere, and Galahad, Fairside, and Idlewild and also fluffy pretty things like Ocean Breeze, Sea Star, and my personal favorite, the wonderfully incongruous Royal Stone Drive.

Ever since the end of WW II, developers have had the last word in Malibu's place names. Those names are layered on top of the old rancho's Spanish and Chumash heritage, with a little bit of the old west thrown in for good measure.

The plan for Point Dume in the 1930s was intended to be the new "American Riviera" and included a massive hotel, piers, groins and breakwaters, a polo field and golf course, and a fake lighthouse, but no street names were recorded on the plans. 

Many of Malibu’s Spanish names are largely pragmatic: Encinal, which means oak grove, was named for the canyon’s impressive live oak woodlands. Big Rock is a sedate English version of the more colorful original Spanish Piedra Gordo—fat rock. Las Flores was named for the canyon’s abundant spring flowers. Tuna Canyon gets its name from the native prickly pear cactus. La Costa means simply coast, while Escondido means hidden. Trancas means barrier, perhaps describing the narrow box canyon that was ideal for containing cattle, while Latigo means harness leather.

This 1920s advertisement for a failed tract development contains the first mention of Latigo Canyon that I could find. This real estate scheme, named by madly optimistic and hopelessly romantic developers "Malibu Mar Vista," boasts "approve the plans, drive out some weekend and find your mountain home already built." However, one of the captions under the photos reveals that Latigo Road has not yet been completed, complicating the sales premise. "Arrow indicated steam dredger at work on new Latigo Canyon Road," it states.

Pragmatic settlers christened Cross Creek, Westward Beach, Corral Canyon, Broad Beach, Boney Ridge, Saddle Peak, and Sandstone Peak, although Sandstone Peak is actually volcanic not sedimentary, and Broad Beach is no longer broad. Carbon canyon, mesa, and beach, also named with un-enigmatic accuracy, got their name from an unsuccessful oil rush in the early 20th century. Yerba Buena Road might be named for any of the dozens of “good plants” the grow in the area, but the consensus is that the road takes its name from redshanks, a shrub that is abundant in the highest portion of the Santa Monica Mountains and rarely seen in the rest of the range. It's the bright green plant visible in the photo, above, with Boney Ridge in the background. Red shanks was used by the Chumash, the Spanish, and the Mexican Americans as a medicine for toothache, fevers, colds, injuries and infections. Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

Most of Malibu’s Spanish names are said to date from the period when the Rancho was owned by the Tapia family, in the early 1900s. I was always told that Puerco Canyon, which means means pig in Spanish, was an exception. The canyon was home to a pig farm in the 1940s and '50s owned by land speculator William De Bell, and tradition has always given DeBell credit for the name, but I recently found it labeled Puerco on a 1901 geologic survey map. Either way, the old pig farm now has a new name: Cameron Wilderness Preserve, for filmmaker James Cameron.

Puerco Canyon already has its name on this 1901 map of the Malibu coast, but Latigo is called Dry Canyon, and Carbon Canyon, Coal Canyon. 

Leon Victor Prudhomme, who acquired the Malibu Rancho through marriage into the Tapia family in 1848, appears not to have left any names behind, but Irish immigrant Matthew Keller, who purchased the Rancho in 1857, is commemorated in the name “Keller’s Shelter,” the official if seldom used title for a stretch of coast along Old Malibu Road. Rising Sun Trail in Solstice Canyon is a 20th century tribute to Keller, named for his famous Los Angeles vineyard and the grapes he grew in the canyon.

This archival photo dating to around 1908, the year the Rindge family's Hueneme, Malibu and Port Los Angeles Railway was completed. It shows the impressive Rindge railroad trestle over Ramirez Canyon that connected the mesas at Paradise Cove. Some early maps show Ramirez Canyon spelled Ramera—Spanish for mesa, but the 1870 plat map created for Rancho owner Mathew Keller gives it as Las Ramirez. Zumirez remains a mystery. It may represent a developer’s effort to Spanish-ize the Chumash name Zuma.

The first detailed map of Malibu was produced for Keller in 1870 as part of his effort to confirm that he had legal title to the property. Almost all the names on the map are still in use, from Arroyo Sequit, to Cañada Malibu, but there are some curious variations.

The 1870 plat map records Solstice Canyon as Cañada del Solto. Rindge later refers to it as "Soston" but a 1900 geologic survey map shows it as Solstice. Lechuza Canyon is listed as “La Chusal” on Mathew Keller’s 1870 plat. Tradition says this canyon was named for the Spanish word for “barn owl,” which is also the name of an enigmatic shape-shifting witch woman from Mexican folklore. However, the name may be folk-etymology. According to Chumash language specialist Richard Applegate, Lechuza may be derived from the Chumash name “Lisiqsihi.” Applegate's paper Chumash Place Names, published in the Journal of California Anthropology,  indicates that Arroyo Sequit may also be a version of the same word, which in Ventureño means “beachworm.”

Leo Carrillo State Park brings together almost every type of Malibu naming convention: there's Sequit, the original Chumash name; San Nicholas Canyon, named by Spanish explorers; Mullholland Highway, from the era of developer and water baron William Mulholland; and Leo Carrillo, for the philanthropist and park advocate. Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

Arroyo Sequit was an important cultural center for the Chumash. In Malibu the canyon and the road the cuts through it represent a symbolic class of cultures.  Mulholland Highway bears the name of the man who rewrote Southern California history, water baron William Mulholland. Unlike earlier inhabitants, who usually chose descriptive names for their landmarks, California's developers had no scruples about naming things for themselves.

In Malibu, those place names include Merritt Drive, commemorating Merritt Adamson, Jr., the son of Rindge family heir Rhoda Rindge and Merritt Adamson; and Busch Drive, named for Malibu Realtor Louis Busch who had the responsibility of splitting up and selling the Malibu Rancho for the Marblehead Land Company after the Ridge family was forced to sell.

The map on this 1946 real estate ad for Louis T. Busch Associates features all of the modern canyon names, but gives Ramera—the singular form of the Spanish word mesa for Ramirez and Piedra Gordo—fat rock—for what is now Big Rock. 

Homesteaders and other early residents also left their names behind. Cotharin Road, above, Houston Road, and Decker Canyon Road are all named for homesteader families who carved out a living in the remote and inaccessible western Santa Monica Mountains in the first years of the 20th century. Cavalleri Road was named for Enrico Cavalleri, who moved to Malibu just after WW II. His son Louie ran an earthmoving company and was the bulldozer operator for almost all of the early development on Point Dume, in an era when the first roads were being built. The family also raised dry crops like lima beans in the open fields of what is now Malibu Park. Kanan Dume Road combines elements of history and developer influence: it was named in the 1960s by Oak Park tract developers Louis and Mark Boyer for a family of 19th century Agoura area settlers. Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

There's also a politician or two lurking in Malibu's nomenclature. One of them is Robert H. Meyer, who had the honor of having three of coast's most beautiful pocket beaches named in his honor, despite the fact that as assistant secretary of agriculture in the Carter administration he was forced to resigned amid allegations that he using his position to secure extra water rights for his personal Central Valley agricultural holdings, according to the September 8, 1977 New York Times.

Beautiful El Matador Beach is part of Robert H. Meyer Memorial State Beaches, named for a politician who served on the California State Parks Commission but who was also forced to resign his government position over allegations that he abused his position as assistant secretary of agriculture in the Carter administration. One can't help wondering what  performer, humorist, and social commentator Will Rodgers, whose State Park and beach is just east of Malibu, would have thought of this naming choice. Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

Philanthropists have also made their mark on Malibu.  Leopoldo Antonio Carrillo (1881-1961) was a fourth generation Californian, and an actor, vaudevillian, political cartoonist, and conservationist. Carrillo served on the California Beach and Parks commission for eighteen years and was involved in the acquisition of Hearst Castle, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and other properties. He purchased 1500 acres in Arroyo Sequit from Waite Phillips, a Los Angeles financier, in 1952 and left an endowment after his death to fund the conversion of the ranch into a State Park. It's fitting that one of the most popular parks in the state is named in his honor. 

Frederick Hastings Rindge was also a philanthropist. In his Massachusetts home town streets and buildings commemorate his contributions, but in Malibu almost no trace of the Rindge name remains other than the long defunct Rindge dam, which will eventually be demolished.

While Rindge appears to have enjoyed creating names for landmarks on his ranch but few if any of the names mentioned in his book “Happy Days in California” appear to have stuck. There’s a good chance that “Conviction, Conversion and Salvation” peaks may be the three peaks visible from Heathercliff and Selfridge on Point Dume that once bore the official designation “Lion Peaks,” but “Cataclysm Chasm,” “Mocking Bird Valley,” “Crag Noble,” and “Sycamore Grove” are anyone’s guess today.

A clipping from a 1946 Malibu Times shows the first post WW II roads being cut on Point Dume. The U.S. Government took possession of the Point during the war, and placed the area off limits. Development was delayed first by the Depression and then by the war. By the time the windswept peninsula was divided into parcels and sold in 1946, there was no longer any talk of polo fields and golf courses and the grand vision of an American Riviera lives on only in the names of the three Point Dume homeowners associations: Riviera I, II, and III.

Rindge appreciated Malibu's Chumash history. It would have been easy for him to discard the name Zuma and even Malibu in favor of one of his fanciful ideas, most developers of the era wouldn't have hesitated, but he didn't do it, and in a very real way it is thanks to him that the local Chumash place names we still use have survived.

Malibu was home for thousands of years to Chumash communities. The city’s name is adapted from a Ventureño Chumash word generally translated as “where the surf sounds,” but the Chumash, rounded up and sent to the San Fernando Mission, had been gone for nearly three quarters of a century when Rindge bought the Rancho only the names remained. 

The Adamson House, Malibu Lagoon State Park, Surfrider Beach and a half mile or so of Pacific Coast Highway occupy the site of the original community of Humaliwo. The Chumash name is generally translated as "where the surf sounds." Applegate cites a paper published in 1957 that "suggests the etymology '(the surf) sounds loudly all the time,' based on the stem iwo, 'to sound,' and a prefix mal, which can refer to the terrain." Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

Topanga means “a place above” in the Tongva language. Anacapa Island, visible on clear days from west Malibu beaches, is said to mean mirage, Sequit was beach worm, and Zuma was the word for abundance. According to Applegate, Sycamore Canyon may dirive its name from the Ventureño word ˆsuwalaxˆso.

There's substantial evidence to support the theory that Point Dume is also a Chumash name. While British explorer George Vancouver is credited with naming Point Dume for Father Francisco Dumetz, whom he visited prior to naming the peninsula in 1793, there is substantial evidence to suggest the word Dume may have come from the same root as Zuma, the Chumash word Sumo.

Vancouver named Point Mugu for the Chumash community of Muwu, shortly before assigning the name Dume, not Dumetz, to the eastern point. “This Point I will call ‘Point Dume,’” he wrote.

Rindge, who purchased the entire 13,300-acre Malibu Rancho in 1892, always called the point “Duma,” and states in his book Happy Days in Southern California that the name was derived from Zuma.

His view is supported by information provided by Chumash elder Ferdinando Librado to ethnographer John Peabody Harrington between 1912-15. Librado stated that “Sumo extends out to sea and at the end of the point there was a hill.” Librado added that “Sumo is called in nautical language Dume.”

Here's a detail of the 1870 plat created for Mathew Keller that describes the point as “rocky” and calls it “Duma or Zuma Point.” The Adamson House has a printed version of the map. A scan of the original hand-drawn sketch can be viewed at the Huntington Library's digital archive.

Point Dume was a significant Chumash population center. The portion that is now part of Point Dume State Beach was reportedly a shrine site. Other portions of the point, now developed, contained the remains of large villages and several cemeteries. The street name “Indian Mound” within the Point Dume Club Mobile Home Park is the only reminder of what was there before homes were built.

The sign post at the corner of Indian Mound Road and Metate Lane in the Point Dume Mobile Home Park is all that's left of an extensive Chumash village and burial site that was bulldozed in the 1970s. Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

Here at the Malibu Post we think the Johnny Strange Malibu Skatepark could be a great addition to the community, and there is no reason why an amenity provided to the city through a generous donation that is made in memory of a much loved community member should not be named in their honor—Michael Landon Community Center at Malibu Bluffs Park and Leo Carrillo State Park are good examples. However, we confess to being less enthusiastic about some other recent naming conventions. 

It's easy to see how Malibu Bluffs Park got its name. With the insipid exception of Legacy Park (visitors always want to know whose legacy), the City of Malibu has sensibly used the geographic location for the names of its parks. However, since we already have a Trancas Canyon Park it remains to be seen if Trancas Fields, the city's newest acquisition, keeps its everyday name or receives a new title. Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

Some longtime Malibu residents were dismayed when the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy renamed old McCoye Ranch Wientraub Family Park, without a single mention of its pioneer family. 

It wouldn't have cost the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy anything extra to stick the words "Old McCoye Ranch" on the sign welcoming visitors to the Ana and Cole Weintraub Family Park. Weintraub is to be commended for selling the property to the Conservancy instead of going through with controversial plans to build a resort with yurts, but naming rights shouldn't overwrite history, especially in a case like this where the property is filled with the ghosts of the past (you can read more about it here). Photo © 2016 S. Guldimann

Choosing stoner surfer dude comic strip character Zonker Harris as the namesake for the west Carbon Beach beach accessway in 1981 made a certain amount of thematic sense, but with so many amazing real people with a connection to the area—real life New Yorker cartoonist Leo Callum lived nearby, so did Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs—it might have been nice if they'd picked someone with an historical connection to Malibu, or maybe even a Chumash name, for the people who were Malibu's first residents and stewards. On the bright side, having a beach accessway named after him seems to have inspired this eternal slacker to become, in his own way, an active access activist.

So far, Garry Trudeau's eternal surfer dude Zonker Harris is the only fictional character to be honored with a place name in Malibu.

As Malibu continues to evolve there may be many new naming opportunities. As residents, it will be up to us to make sure they reflect the real Malibu.

Names traditionally have power, choosing them wisely is important. Just the name Malibu is enough to conjure with, in a way that "Billowbay" or "Puritan" never could be. But the best and most important name those of us who are lucky enough to live here can give this community is home.