Southern California #7, Redondo Beach: A Search for Acceptance

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

Public transportation in Southern California is so inept visitors really need to rent a car to get around. Distances are significant and vacation time is always precious. Besides which, cruising coastal California by car can be the vacation itself. As if Emerson is right: the journey not the destination.

Any visitor flying into the hell and the fury that is LAX will surely find the relative serenity down the Pacific Coastal Highway from Los Angeles to, say, San Diego a fun, nostalgic trip through the 1950’s.

Redondo Beach manages to combine some of the upscale urban life with the laid-back coastal culture that defines Southern California. Despite the name, Redondo Beach is more a grouping of yacht marinas although the beach that enfolds the harbors is readily accessible.

The town differs from Huntington Beach, the so-called “Surf City” to the South because it lies in Los Angeles County and essentially attracts the LA crowd. So there’s more diversity and contrasts between really upscale resorts like the Portofino Hotel and Yacht Club in King Harbor and all the other beach places in town that are a bit funky.

A stroll around the marinas brings you to the stuff of the immediate post World War II days: a brightly-painted “Fun Factory,” a whimsical shop with a simple sign pointing vaguely To Hollywood, a “pirate yacht” with a crew of life-size female mannequins swinging from the mast, a closed-up shop named The Best, and a tongue-in-cheek sign, a warning apparently for thoughtless motorists, stuck on a particularly high cairn of rocks on top of the sea wall proclaiming, “No Parking At Any Time.”

All this kitsch suggests this is a town that doesn’t take itself too seriously, that it doesn’t need to be fancy and then, Wham! you walk into the splendor of the upscale Portofino Hotel and Yacht Club – from its magnificent suites to its lounge with its vaulting white ceiling, Wedgewood blue walls, fireplace, chandeliers and nautical themes, and you realize some architect not only took the recent renovation of the hotel seriously but clearly spent all of the $11 million he had available to do so.

We see the guests sitting in the spacious lounge with their laptops and ask a hotel spokesperson, “What makes this hotel special?”

He replies, “Beyond this living room setting?” And then he goes straight into, “You are 15 minutes from LA -- then you are in this, this Paradise. We have a location on the water with gorgeous sunsets while you watch the yachts slip by. The seal lions love it here, too; that’s why we offer ear plugs for light sleepers! Then you have the proximity to shops and restaurants – although our restaurant Baleen is so acclaimed it’s nothing for people to drive an hour or more just to dine here.”

We became believers. We had dinner one night in Baleen that was one of the top ten meals we’ve had in all our years of travel. Yet the bill with wine came to only $140.

You don’t find significant mountain ranges in coastal southern California, of course. The surf and its challenge is the enticement and the locals embrace it with enthusiasm. They need their wetsuits because the ocean temperature cannot compete with, say, Florida’s. The pull of the water to locals is extraordinary.

Whether it’s for surfing or scuba they will willingly snatch a few minutes from work just to get in a quick dive or a rapid ride on a wave despite all the dressing and undressing in between that would be tiresome for not enthusiastic about the ocean.

You couldn’t find a better enthusiast than Bob Meistrell. With his late twin brother, Bill, he co-founded Body Glove, the company that made them both famous and rich. Formerly farm boys from Missouri, they were pioneers in surfing and, way back in 1944, thought of adding fiberglass to the nose of plywood surf boards to protect them. They designed the first wetsuits “that fitted like a glove.”

We are walking around one of the marinas smiling at some of the names boat owners give their motor yachts when Bob Meistrell walks by. We are reading out the boat names like Mirabella, Lady Donna, Ms. Chief and LA Woman and telling each other that men clearly are the extravagant ones who put all that money into boats -- but name them after their significant others to assuage any criticism. He overhears us. “LA Woman is owned by a doctor,” he says.

He takes us aboard his boat, The Disappearance. Asked if he is certified as a diver, he grins and says “I have the UICC diving instruction certificate number 1.” He recently put on his wet suit on his 82nd birthday and went down to 122 feet. He says he wants to go 400 feet on his next birthday. He has made many professional underwater movies and for them taught Lloyd Bridges, Charlton Heston and Gary Cooper to dive. He is now building personal submarines, the prototypes apparently costing $45 million.

He is without doubt a local character and, despite his wealth, a good old boy. His twin brother Bill’s favorite restaurant was Burger King so, for Bill’s funeral service that brought 1600 people, Bob chose Burger king to do the catering!

He is full of local information: “There is a nude beach here for older people,” he says, “but it isn’t very popular. Know why? Nobody wants to look at old nudes! And d’you know why there’s a beach here called ‘RAT Beach’? Because if you head south it’s Right After Torrance!”

He explains that once Redondo Beach had the world’s largest salt water plunge. It had huge prospects to become a major port at a time when the Red Car came only this far down from Los Angeles but the rails were extended farther south to Huntington Beach which then put up a huge hotel.

He tells us about the Portofino Hotel and Yacht Club. It was first owned by Mary Davis, an early Cal Club race driver. She had a hand with race driver Brock Yates in setting up the first Cannonball Run, New York to Los Angeles, a 1971 race that began with the time recorded at the Red Ball Garage on 32nd Street and ended at the clock on the counter of what was then called the Portofino Inn. The races continued till 1979. In its earlier days the hotel was a hangout for racers especially those who had been racing at the Ascot Park dirt sprint race track in Gardena, seven miles distant. Peter Revson, millionaire racing driver and Revlon heir, had a condo here. He died in a car crash aged 35.

Another local car enthusiast has had his business, Fender’s Body Shop, at 210 Pacific Coast Highway in Hermosa Beach for 47 years. He is two short blocks north of Redondo. His parking lot reveals a 1971 MGB, a 1960 Triumph TR3 and a 1964 Porsche 356C. Inside he has a 1934 Ford roadster and, even more interesting, a 1917 Touring Studebaker still wearing its original Desert brand Waterbag with its advice “Saturate Before Using.” We ask Mick how many vehicles he has owned. He shrugs and says 60 to 70 and about 30 motorcycles.

This is indeed car country and it’s been that way from the town’s first history. A walk around the marinas brings visitors to murals that demonstrate those days. As we wander around we ask several people who are walking dogs or riding bikes if they are locals and if so do they have a favorite Mexican restaurant. Yes and Yes, they reply so later we are driving about three miles south to Riviera Village and the restaurant that is simply called Riviera. And one hour later it has become our favorite Mexican restaurant in Redondo Beach.