I drove east on PCH this morning and it looks like Greek or Roman ruins. Scenic, but a lot of surf spots have been exposed.
The surf spots are legit, ya. So is the sand. Public has and always will have access to sand and surf in east Malibu, if they know where and when.
Let’s start with backstory. Exposition.
My grandmother bought the 1198 SF home in 1973. It was one of six identical beach cottages built in 1958, along the south side of PCH near Big Rock. In 2014, we renovated it and added 12 SF. I don’t remember the APR process (Malibu permitting) being a difficulty at all, not like it appears to be now.
I won’t ask what she paid for it as that would be rude and NOMB, but everyone in Malibu should watch “Don’t Make Waves” with Sharon Tate (as Malibu), Tony Curtis, Claudia Cardinale and a cameo by Mr. Magoo. It’s all set in Malibu circa 1967 and citizens are whinging about paying $100,000 for a beach house. Oy.
My grandmother was a very smart woman. I am extremely lucky to have spent time at her house and I will do my best to bring it back to its glory, and create a space/home befitting our precious coastline. It is, always was and always will be a 1200-ish SF, 2-bd, 2-bath beach cottage.
The other day you were walking into the Place That Shall Not Be Named and you said you had just been in Agoura and passed a step to becoming an architect. How far off from earning your AIA?
I have two more tests to pass on the ARE (Architect Registration Examination), then the CSE (California Supplemental Exam) - the final test for Architecture, specific to California, so I am a few months away from expressing a professionally-licensed opinion.
Are you allowed to design your own home if you aren’t AIA?
I’m designing the Like-4-Like + 10% rebuild for my parents. The TDSF is being reduced to 1206 SF, but the roof height is increasing by a maximum allowable one foot, to make the surf shack 11 feet tall at its high point. I am, as is anyone, allowed to design it, so long as a CA-licensed Structural Engineer designs the structure and takes the bulk of the design liability. My SE is the best I know.
Do you want to name-check that Structural Engineer person or is he busy enough?
He is an engineer with whom I designed major hospital projects. He was schooled at Cal Poly SLO and learned a very complicated version of real world engineering (hospitals, major infrastructure projects and other Type 1 building projects) at KPFF Consulting Engineers, which is when I met him. His skill set is perfect for this beachfront, non-combustible construction project with challenging geotechnical and oceanic issues. Just yesterday, he and I agreed upon the right-sizing of the elevated waffle slab - it is a bit more stout than previously anticipated.
What was your expertise and experience before?
I designed houses, bars, hotels and then primarily hospitals and healthcare spaces for over 22 years, in Marin, but also the Palisades, Beverly Hills, Newport Beach, Brentwood, Hancock Park, Hollywood, and others. My favorite project was up in Marin - the Oak Pavilion at MarinHealth Medical Center, which concluded (for me) in 2020, when the Certificate of Occupancy was issued to the client. It is a tremendously beautiful hospital, and the project team was exceptional.
Can you describe the home you intend to build?
Dry-pack concrete, also known as Rammed (pressed) Earth exterior and interior load-bearing walls are the defining elements of the rebuild, as are the sand-colored concrete piles and two-way waffle slab, which underscore and support the solid walls above. My main focus is bringing the natural beauty of Malibu into the project, while using fire-resistant design/construction methods and taking advantage of the environment: views to the south and southwest, and the beach below.
Sounds like a 21st Century version of Mid Century Modern? Bring in the outside. Let the light shine through.
The inhabitants will be invited by the architecture to flow outside and into the Malibu landscape and seascape rather than focus on the beauty of the building. Metal cladding on the roof and long exterior, east and west facing walls, further protects my family from the highway noise, potential fires and floods, and will allow us to be drawn southward towards the big blue ocean. The cascading metal folds over the residence like a breaking wave, wrapping us up in the sea.
The drawings I saw are Star Warsish?
I wouldn’t say that.
While driving on PCH I saw you at the location talking to some guys with what looked like a giant post hole digger.
That was Choice Drilling - we were drilling for soil samples- the basis of a geotechnical report.
Do you know how many and how much for the caissons you will have to dig?
Eight to ten, in rows of two. The flared capitals of the piles are what may have caused your Star Wars flashback. As for the cost, I’m not sure: $130 to $150K per pile is my guess. I’m no contractor.
How deep? Materials?
According to the ongoing geotechnical analysis and the bedrock profile determined by a geologist - along with conservative assumptions by the structural engineers - the piles will get taller as the rebuild moves southward, with the deepest (southernmost) piles being 35 to 40 feet tall. The piles will all be embedded into at least 10 feet of bedrock, which is why they get shorter as they move north. The bedrock slopes downward from PCH into the ocean, so the northerly piles may only need to be 25 feet tall.
What other preliminary examinations and extrapolations have you done to the site?
Daily swimming along the neighborhood coastline as well as cycling along PCH from the Pacific Palisades to Dukes.
Well that bike ride is safer than it was, with the supposed 25 MPH speed limit. I still hope they place a safe and sane bike path connecting Malibu and Santa Monica.
The bike ride gives me a very real sense of the coastal layout of bluffs carved out by the wind and water. Also, a survey and some sort of coastal evaluation. The City has yet to make the determination of what type of coastal report is going to be required: at this point, those coastal and geotechnical engineers are stalling the project.
Someone here just wondered how you will insure the house? Will the finished product be worth more than $3,000,000?
Same way we insured it prior to the fire.
How has your insurance experience been after Palisades? I’ve heard of some people having surprisingly easy experiences and others having ongoing waking nightmares.
Not bad. Our insurance policy with a private insurer was fair: They gave us the maximum allowable payout as listed on our insurance plan in a timely manner.
How many homes are currently being rebuilt in Malibu?
Less than 40 - only 40 permits for construction have been issued as of 3/20/2026 - one can only assume some have not yet started construction. That is less than 5% of the Malibu homes destroyed in the Palisades Fire.
I drove through Palisades the morning of March 19 and they’ve gone Amish - throwing up frames all over the place. Can you, in less than novel length, explain the difference in haste between there and here?
Malibu is a city engineered by slow and no growth policies. Those policies have created a building department focused on overly punitive processes for the building applicants. Up until now, no one could get political support to change those processes. Thankfully, through efforts by MRTF, Abe Roy and others, some of that is beginning to change, at least for rebuilders.
You made a speech at City Council on Monday, February 23, I think, where you expressed your frustrations and intentions. Here are some of the highlights:
You in front of City Council: “On October 15th of last year, many of us were present when the council adopted a zoning interpretation for rebuild guidelines. However, if you search online today, you would find no real indication that this happened. If I hadn’t been here to witness it, I wouldn’t have known either.”
Me: So the zoning guidelines adopted in October are not available online? That’s likely to cause unrest.
They are now. The City staff is understandably very busy, but I hope they can move a bit faster. I’m pretty sure the new City Manager will help get things a bit more efficient.
You, in front of the City Council: “You heard Lea Thompson earlier — $2 million is the gross estimate for subsurface work for an AOWTS, a seawall, and the structural foundation for a house. My parents’ beachfront property was probably worth about $3.5 million before the fire, based on adjacent sales. Since the fire, similar properties are listed at around $1.5 million. That’s a $2 million drop in value.”
Me: Yikes, do you mean if you rebuild your family house it will only be worth $1,500,000, or is that just what the property is worth now?
Presumably the land is worth about that much right now. The property next door (same size, same burned remains) is currently listed for $1.6 million.
You, in front of City Council: “Asking beachfront rebuilders like my family to spend 60% of the perceived value of their property just on a seawall and an AOWTS is unreasonable. Some people can afford to do it, and some are choosing to. I don’t think it’s a wise decision.”
Me: What recourse/options do you have?
We don’t necessarily need to construct a shoreline protective device if our existing septic system is functional and adequately protected from Wave Uprush and the 50-year flood projections.
I asked Chat GPT about Wave Uprush and it said: “Wave uprush—also called wave runup—is the maximum height and distance waves surge up the الساحل above the normal waterline, especially during storms, high tides, and big swell events. In California, regulators and engineers use it, along with storm surge and tide levels, to determine how close to the ocean you can safely build and how high structures need to be elevated.”
I asked Chat GPT what الساحل is and it responded: “ الساحل (al-sāḥil) means “the coast” or “shoreline.” It looks like it slipped into the paragraph by mistake—good catch. You’d want that sentence to read: “…waves surge up the coast above the normal waterline…” This is some world we're living in now. Are you using artificial intelligence in any way in your project?
No need for AI in my process just yet…in design, I have seen AI used to gain efficiency of output. We all know the City of Malibu isn’t requiring efficiency in any way. Our rebuild is one of over 10 or 15 such properties with an existing, functioning septic system existing with no seawall or obvious need for a shoreline protective device, due to compliance with FEMA BFE and the proper siting of the existing septic system.
Remember how I said my grandmother was a very smart woman? She picked potentially the best-sited beach cottage in regards to coastal layout and septic system arrangement in 1973.
What of all this causes you to rend your hair the most? (I won’t tell people it’s a weave.)
Right now, coastal engineers are holding our process hostage based on a 2014 Coastal Evaluations Guidebook which was published by the City of Malibu. That guidebook effectively reduced the marketplace of available coastal engineers down to … two civil engineers.
Say what??!?!?! Just two, Utah??!?!?!
That market limitation, created by the municipal government, needs to be corrected. The beachfront rebuilding community is frozen because of the limited professionals available (all TWO of them), who currently have the ability to charge exorbitant hourly fees for a coastal evaluation that any Registered Civil Engineer in the State of California is capable of providing. Three hundred and thirty rebuilding beachfront clients should not be beholden to the artificially high rates and incredibly slow project development schedules of two engineers. What happened to the open marketplace which is the bedrock of capitalism?
Two engineers for 330 rebuilders? How do you fix a situation that is, if you will pardon the expression: Constipating the process. Who is the decider?
I am working on several paths to make this process more available to every Registered Civil Engineer capable and willing to do the work, at least for my family’s rebuild.
Before the City Council you had a lot to say about the wastewater treatment pipeline? What are the projections for cost, length of it, pumping stations, completion date?
According to the City of Malibu Dept. of Public Works, who issued a report to City Council on February 23, the sewer line is being designed to connect 461 properties east of Carbon Terrace to the LADWP sewer lines near Castellamare and carry effluent down to the Hyperion Treatment Center near LAX. It is projected to cost $126,000,000 and be completed by 2031. All the details are schematic and provided in the 2/23/2026 City Council Agenda Report.
Do you think those projections are feasible?
Yes. For infrastructure projects like sewer, CEQA is waived by Executive Order N-24-25, so the California Coastal Commission won’t be delaying the design and review process of the Carbon Terrace to Topanga Sewer project, thank goodness. The city really ought to consider adding all of the Big Rock Mesa homes to the sewer, and further protect against the Big Rock Mesa landslide’s potential movement. We really focused on that in Episode 24 of RebuildandChill. Our guests Andrew Sheldon and Madelyn Glickfeld really explained it well.
Wait for the wastewater pipeline?
We will have the waste line of our rebuild plumbed into the wastewater pipeline (sewer) once it is constructed in 2031 or 2032. Until then, we are utilizing our existing septic system, which is now allowable for rebuilds due to great actions taken by Malibu’s City Council and Building Department in 2025. I am very thankful for their help on this vital issue.
Do you think some builders in your zone will wait five years for the wastewater pipeline to be installed before they build it?
Some may take five years just because it may take that long to get financing, design, engineering and emotional commitments sorted out. The PCH rebuilders currently in the process have their strategies to tie into the sewer line once it is brought online.
Do you know if that’s the intent of the Mowbray Brothers, or are they going to forge ahead and spend a lot of money on foundations and seawalls and AOWTS.
My understanding of their strategy is limited, but I think they are currently planning on AOWTS and seawalls up and down Carbon Beach.
Do you know what it will cost to hook your family home into that wastewater pipeline?
The rerouting of a waste line (from a septic tank to a sewer line) is negligible. The assessment for the cost of the sewer construction will likely be between 280K and 400K, depending on assumptions for considerations that the forthcoming Assessment Engineer has yet to determine.
Are you gonna go all Anglophile and name your house?
The old house is Big Rock Beach Cottage. The new house will be Big Rock Beach Cottage/Surf Shack.
Godspeed. We are out of time/space, but for more details, people should tune into the Rebuild and Chill podcast at https://www.youtube.com/@rebuildandchillpod
Always fun. Let’s get more burritos soon.
Burritos shmurittos! I went looking for a breakfast burrito at Vintage Market and stumbled over their epic poke bar. This is a bold statement, but it’s as good or better than the poke bar at Foodland Farms in the Ala Moana Shopping Center! And between 7 and 8 it’s half off!!!
What? 50 percent off?! That’s news to me. I love the poké up at Trancas. Don’t tell my Hawaiian friends, but ya, it’s way better than Foodland poké.