Ben Marcus Rules
Writing, Research, General Word Nerdiness
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HARD HAT/SOFT OPENING FOR THE SURFING HERITAGE AND CULTURE CENTER
The Alexandian Library/Cooperstown/British Museum of Surfing Moves Into Posh New Digs
June 20th, Laguna Beach, California
I have been involved with the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center Formerly Known as the Surfing Heritage Foundation going back at least as far as 2005, when it was called the Surfing Heritage Foundation and it was squirreled away in a nondescript business park out the back of San Clemente.
In 2005 I put together a video musical montage called Trunk It which has Bishop Museum moving images of Waikiki in the first half of the 20th Century: Guys surfing Canoes in 1906, Duke dancing hula at the Moana Surfrider, paddleboard and canoe races at the Outrigger Canoe Clubs - all kine cool stuffs from the Golden Era of Waikiki before passenger jets and statehood.
At the end of Trunk It is Sweet Sixteen: 16 minutes of 16 mm film shot by John Larronde in California in 1947: What appears to be a club contest at San Onofre, big Malibu with Matt Kivlin and friends, Bob Simmons driving his old jalopy with two boards strapped to the roof down to the Ventura Overhead, and then Simmons and a Happy Few surfing big Overhead in ways it apparently doesn’t break anymore. And then eight foot Rincon with no one in the water, and then Joe Quigg and two others with no wetsuits or leashes surfing Rincon about halfway down and loving every minute of it.
They are on huge hardwood planks they turn like 747s and you can see the oil pier at Little Rincon being built in the background. Three guys, not 300.
As a writer and historian, I love that the SHACCFKATSHF exists because I find stuff sometimes and am jazzed to have a place to archive and store it: Like when they were cleaning out the warehouse at SURFER Magazine (RIP 1960 - 2022) I found a thick binder with Xeroxed copies of The Weekly Spintail - the newsletter of the Palos Verdes Surf Club from the 1930s right up to the attack on Pearl Harbor - when all normal activities in California came grinding to a halt.
I confiscated that big thick binder of what was probably the first ongoing surf-related periodical of any kind, and handed it over to Dick Metz for safe-keeping. It’s probably tucked away in their library upstairs - indexed and cataloged as it should be.
I also begged Dick Metz to go to the Ventura County Museum to the look at the John Larronde Collection of photos. This is the same guy who shot Sweet Sixteen and was recently featured in The Surfer’s Journal. He photographed Southern California beach life from the 1930s into the 1960s and the collection is a treasure trove - I felt like Howard Carter looking into King Tut’s Tomb and seeing wonderful things.
Dick took a historic haj to Ventura and saw the whole collection and agreed on the quantity and quality, but the Ventura County Museum weren’t selling for any price. So now all that history is squirreled away and dusty in some corner of the museum like the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. No bueno.
The Larronde Collection belongs in the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center and that’s a tragedy right up there with the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.
THE LARRONDE COLLECTION SAMPLES
Look close and you’ll see Norma Jean/Marilyn Monroe hanging with Jackie Coogan/Uncle Fester, Pete Peterson, Whitey Harrison and Tommy Zahn at a Malibu Beach party at Cap Watkins circa 1947.
You’ll also see George Downing on the beach at Malibu with the Wally Froiseth and Russ Takaki with the Pepe board he ran into the Malibu pier and thought it was pau. Bob Simmons offered ot fix it: ”And that was the first time I saw fiberglass and resin,” George said.
That beach party photo at San Onofre beach party photo was blown up big on the wall of the old Surfing Heritage Foundation building in San Clemente (RIP)
And check the outline of that Super Waikiki Board held by the mysterious Dick in the Srping of 1946. Ever seen a mid century outline that modern? Almost seems like a time travel anachronism.
This is just a sliver of what is in the Larronde Collection. Auwe.
At one time the founder Dick Metz wanted me to produce a book of his photos and many stories he had collected from deep in the 20th Century to well into the 21st: Frolicking with Shirley Temple on the beach in Laguna in the 1940s,his world travels in the 1950s - where he tripped over Cape Saint Francis and told two friends. Dick was one of the founders of the surf indutstial complex as Hobie Alter’s right hand man beginning in the 1960s and through the decades. All kine cool stuffs. Too much for one book.
I tried to condense it all into a book and gave up, and said the internet was the only way to do justice to the material: Video clips and webstories with galleries so no photos would be left on the editing floor.
As a test case, this is the story of Dick’s adventures in Africa. Check out the quality, color and texture of the photos he took with a funky camera way back in the late 50s: “Kodachrome Brings out the nice bright colors. Brings out the greeeens of summer.”
http://www.benmarcusrules.com/dick-metz-hey-im-in-africa-excerpt
All knowledge under one roof at the Library of the Alexandrian Greeks.
From the beginning I have called the Surfing Heritage and Cultural Center Formerly Known as the Surfing Heritage Foundation “The library of the Alexandrian Greeks for surf culture,” where the Alexandrian library (c. 295/283 BCE – 391 CE) was an attempt to put all human knowledge under one roof - and that included raiding visiting ships for whatever charts or books or logs they were holding. They wanted it allllll.
Which is cool because I have stumbled over artifacts and images and knowledge that need a suitable home where it all kind be archived and stored and protected. That was the Surfing Heritage Foundation until it became the Surfing Heritage and Cultural Center, but the object of the exercise remained the same: Collect, authenticate, archive, display.
For a time they were talking about moving to a more public facility in Dana Point Harbor, which would have been good, but that got shot down by COVID.
But now they have moved into the former Sprouse Reitz building on Ocean Street across from Hennessey’s Tavern - about four doors up and smelling and roaring distance from Mother Ocean at Main Beach Laguna. Where it otter be, not squirreled away in the hill country of San Clemente.
The new SHACC is equidistant between the Huntington Pier and San Clemente Pier, and Odin knows how many surfers are lurking between those points. Too many, but enough to keep the SHACC floating. They’ll be serving coffee and food and drink which is a good call.
Sprouse-Reitz on Broadway, circa 1941
In this photo taken shortly after their opening, we see the striped awning drawn back, and if you click on the photo to enlarge, you’ll see a large selection of plates in the left front window.
In front, a sidewalk scale beckons local passersby to get their current weight for a penny, often with a fortune to boot.
Serving faithfully for five decades, the town took the stores’ closure hard. A variety of tenants passed through this space, including the recently departed Laguna Drug. As we await the next shop to set up in this spot, we can use the magic of historical archives...with the support of Stu News...to keep the spirit of our Sprouse-Reitz dime store fresh in our minds.
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Laguna Beach Historical Society is located at 278 Ocean Ave. They are open Friday - Sunday from 1 - 4 p.m. For more information, call (949) 497-6834 or visit www.lagunabeachhistory.org.
Perfecto.
Around February I visited the future home of the SHACC, after nearly getting wasted on the 405 when my fuel pump died and my trusty Ford Expedition just STOPPED. Fortunately I was in the slow lane, but that scared me good.
That time I made it to Laguna Beach with the Charming and Glamorous Joni Casimiro and Dick showed us around a building that was under construction and a shambles, but the potential was obvious: A big-enough, empty space with lots of offices, nooks and crannies, but 20-foot-high ceilings to fit even the largest hardwood tank planks in their collection of hundreds of boards.
Wow, cool. A platoon of workers were going Amish on the place, while computer-generated images showed what was gonna go where and how it was all going to fit, and that was great.
Plenty of space. More than enough space. A big LCD screen for shows and presentations. Their own parking area, which in Laguna is golden.
I’d been to the Baseball Hall of Fame eons ago - a family trip to New York at the same time Woodstock was happening - and this new SHACC had that kind of potential. And I’ve also visited the British Museum once and saw the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles and Lindow Man and other ancient and historic epicness. The SHACC has that quality vibe also.
Checking out the lavish future home of the SHACC I thought the same thing I said to myself when I saw Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in Lemoore: “Blanque cheque.” There is a LOT of money behind the new SHACC. The building itself cost muchos milliones, and they don’t seem to have spared any expense on appointing the interior.
So on June 20th I rode down with Victoria and her offsider Stevie, braving that hideous 405 traffic that was tolerable this time, and made it to the SHACC “hard hat” opening by 6:30 - an hour after the whole shebnag started. We snagged good parking, went in and checked it all out and schmoozed it up with the likes of Dave Rochlen, Tom Servais, Paul Holmes, Corky Carroll, Phil Roberts, Mike Parsons, Jeff Booth, Randy Rarick, Steve Pezman - the guy who hired me at SURFER Magazine and publisher of The Surfer’s Journal - and of course the founders and board members and brains of the operation: Spencer Croul, Dick Metz, Jeff Alter, Barry Haun, Linda Michael, Kate Luitjens and a lot of dedicated decent docents and volunteers.
(Oh geez I almost forgot to mention Shaun Tomson. Who else am I forgetting? Apologies.)
And that guy who looked like Brad Gerlach was indeed Brad Gerlach. I knew him, Horatio: A fellow of infinite jest who was on a SURFER trip to Ireland way back in the 90s. A cool dude, a very good surfer and possibly a comic genius. Maybe the best mimic I’d ever seen: Better than Rich Little. Better than Jim Carrey.
The SHACC will have an official opening in September after all the summer smoke has cleared from Laguna Beach, because the place is relentlessly popular all summer long with all the arts festivals and everything.
Here are some glimpses of that hard hat opening of the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center - the Alexandrian library/Cooperstown/British Museum of surfing.
Museum and archive and library, all of it under one 20-foot-tall roof, close to the sea where it otter be.
