LA's most beautiful beach

I like to travel, and my favorite trip is anything that revolves around surfing.  I have been to islands so remote off the coast of Sumatra that I literally thought the locals, that sat on the beach watching us surf, might actually be thinking about eating us if we got washed up on shore.  After about two weeks of crystal clear 88 degree Indonesian water, perfect white sand beaches with shells woven into the coral sand, endless palm trees, perfect surf, and virtually picture perfect, postcard quality, GARDEN OF EDEN tropical paradise, I find that ……  I am ready to come home!  It always comes as a shock to me, but it happens every time, after about two weeks. I am ready to walk on the beach without malaria medication.  I never want to see mosquito repellent again.  I start craving American Mexican food -ala the veggie burrito with special cheese and sauce (a food that cannot be found anywhere in authentic South or Central America cuisine).  I am in desperate need of letting my skin heal of my 3rd degree sunburn.  I miss my Ipad, my Apple TV, wireless Internet, Lakers games.   I want to be able to see a movie that was not pirated by low rez videophones.  I want my family to be with me.  I want to get back to my life and my friends in Malibu!

Broadbeach has spent more than its fair share of time in the media over the years, usually because of some news article or other about the haves and have nots clashing over beach access.  I remember a particularly juicy article that made it to New York press, about how the Broadbeach elite were trying to keep poor people off the beach by building sand berms.  The journalist seemed to have missed the point that these people were trying to save their homes from being destroyed by winter storms, much like they had done every year for the last 35 years since I was 5 and my family first moved to Malibu.   The homeowners were building sand berms to save those homes in the middle of winter when very few people use the beach, period.    The point is that Broadbeach seems to generate a lot of controversy.  Most recently because of the homeowners desire to rebuild their beach after the mother of all storms clobbered it in 2007.

The main reason Broadbeach gets talked about so much is, well… because it is worth talking about.   It is an amazing chunk of planet earth, and is a beach home vacation destination of choice for some of the elite of the elite.  Is it the best beach in LA?  Until 2007, and a really big storm took half the sand away it was.  Why?  Well think it through with me.

Anywhere in Malibu is a pretty darn great place to live for starters.  It is 30 min to an hour from a major city in Los Angeles, that offers basically anything you could hope to find that shopping, culture, food and technology has to offer, but truly is a world apart.  Malibu has not been mass developed, and still has huge chunks of land devoted to local, state, and national parks.  It has possibly the best climate in the continental United States, year round. Is about 45 minutes from LAX and about 30 minutes from Camarillo Airport.   Malibu is an even easier vacation if you live in the West Side of LA and you want to start your vacation in about 45 minutes (your drive time) instead of 5 to 7 hrs (Hawaii travel) or 36 hrs (LA door to door to Sumatra, Indonesia).  Malibu is safe and has low crime.  It has great public schools.  It is close to great private schools.  The Malibu coastline is mostly south facing with great exposure to the sun all day, with amazing whitewater, and sunrise to sunset views, virtually throughout.  We have good surf year round (Important to me), reasonably clean beaches and water quality, and a lifestyle that can drop your blood pressure by about 20 points in a weekend!

Broadbeach Road has long been regarded as one of the best beaches in Malibu, because as the name implies, it has historically been a very deep, sandy, broad beach.  The 2007 storms put a question mark on that for a few years, but regardless of your standard of greatness, Broadbeach should be back on top once again by 2013. At its worst there is still a lot of beach between you and the ocean on most sections of Broadbeach right now.  With the very likely probability that the beach will be restored in the next year to sand levels that are similar to its 1980’s beach levels, with an additional 80 to 100 feet of dry sand added to the existing beach, Broadbeach will be very hard to beat.  Think about that for a minute: 80 to 100 ft of dry sandy beach added to the existing beach.  Add to that the fact that once this process is established Broadbeach will have a plan for keeping the beach intact for the next 20 years.  With beach erosion becoming a real issue around the world, very few beaches will have a program in place like Broadbeach will to restore and maintain a healthy deep sandy beach for the next 2 decades.  Broadbeach prices are currently at a bargain of about 33% to 40% off of our 2007 highs.   The street itself is once, and in places twice, removed from Pacific Coast Highway and is safer to drive, walk, bike, job and park along.  Beach lots are deeper so you actually are purchasing more property than on most other beach locations.

The best beach in LA?  It is pretty great right now.  By 2013, with a restored beach, it will be very hard to argue any other way.

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Filed under: Beach Houses • Broadbeach • Malibu Real Estate

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