Rindge’s Revenge
Last year, I ended up living in a spare room in a house up a steep cliff in Malibu. I moved there to work on a documentary about Emily Shane, a 13-year old girl who was killed on Pacific Coast Highway. The project fell apart.
All of the friends I made in the year I lived in Malibu are still alive but all of their houses, including the one I lived in with Ann Doneen, the sweetest person I’ve ever met, burned to the ground. Hi, Ann. I’m sure you’ll read this. If you want to read more about Emily Shane, who was an incredible young woman, go to http://emilyshane.org/.
This is an excerpt of the outline I wrote for the documentary. This section was about the history of fire in Malibu as it relates to May Rindge, the woman who at one time owned all of Malibu. When the state tried to build the Roosevelt Highway (now PCH) through her land, she fought them off on horseback with her own private army. Every time a fire burns in Malibu, the locals call it Rindge’s Revenge. (This has not been copyedited and it would not exist without, “The King and Queen of Malibu” by David K. Randall. Go buy it.)
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1905
Frederick Hastings Rindge, an East Coast businessman, poet and nature lover loses his lifelong battle with a chronic illness that plagued him since childhood. Despite his illness, Rindge was a devoted outdoorsman and considered Malibu to be God’s own creation. He purchased “Rancho Malibu,” the last of North America’s Spanish Land Grants in 1892 and built his family a grand house on his 17,000 acres of uninhabited canyons and coastline. There, along with his independent and business-minded wife May Rindge, they raised their family and oversaw the family’s business interests. The Rindge family’s lavish home bore the family motto: “ California shall remain ours as long as the stars remain.”
Ever the adventurer, the wealthy and cavalier Frederick Rindge died on a gold mining expedition he’d undertaken on a whim, leaving his wife to pick up the pieces of the tremendous loss to the family and the Rindge business empire.
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May Rindge was left with two children and an enormous fortune. It became immediately clear that May Rindge was not a typical widow. Her first order of business was to keep the world out. As the sole owner of Malibu, she would spend her remaining years and her family’s fortune protecting the Rindge family’s land.
Later in1905, May built a firewall around Malibu and announced plans to build a private Railroad along Malibu’s coast. This prevented the State of California from building their own railway that would connect the rapidly expanding Los Angeles to cities North. She had her Foreman, a Ranch Worker with little building experience, build a rickety wooden railway along the shoreline. When the foreman balked at the suggestion of a railway that would certainly be destroyed by a strong coastal storm, May’s plan became clear. She wanted the railroad to be destroyed by nature. It was nothing more than a tactic meant to keep progress out and to serve a warning to the settlers, politicians, and businessmen. May Rindge would stop at nothing to protect her private paradise of Malibu.
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While Frederick was publicly perceived as benevolent and community-minded, May Rindge’s fervent defense of the family land turned her into the first female pariah of Los Angeles. In 1907, she wrote a letter to her husband’s childhood friend Teddy Roosevelt asking for help protecting Malibu from the encroaching world. Once the letter became public, the burgeoning Los Angeles newspapers cast May as “The Queen of Malibu,” a bitter and defensive woman hell-bent on keeping everyone else out.
Adding to the pressure, 1907 saw the first automobiles hit Los Angeles. The city, with its expansive orchards and rolling hills, was the first to be obsessed with driving for pleasure. A Los Angeles Times headline boasted of automotive feats like the first drive to Arch Rock, then the “Gateway to Malibu.”
One such article chronicled the exploits of a Mr. Seely, who took his car past Arch Rock onto May Rindge’s property. When May read of Mr. Seely’s exploits she sued him, beginning a series of lawsuits that would define the future of Malibu. Months later, Arch Rock — a symbol that defined the sun and surf of Los Angeles in postcards and letters from the era — was destroyed under mysterious circumstances. This did little to thwart the State’s effort to build “A highway along the coast.” Not immune from the lure of the automobile, May purchased two cars of her own and even allowed the newly-formed AAA to host a car show in Malibu in 1910.
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Multiple trials on the local state and federal level, slowed the State’s progress, but by 1911 surveying had begun for the Coastline State Highway, a road designed to stretch along the shore from Oregon to San Diego. By 1913, the first public automobile path was constructed along the Rindge family property. Undaunted by the progress of modern society, May built her own car path parallel to the newly constructed State road, which she despised and destroyed with dynamite. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce called her, “contrary to religion, decency and civic progress.” *cit needed
The County Board of Supervisors, pushed to their limit by May Rindge and her army of lawyers, kicked off 1916 by declaring eminent domain along the coast of Malibu. The headlines of the LA newspapers bore May’s response. “We will not submit to trespass by the county or any of its residents.” Even May’s own children sided with the city’s desire to build a road through childhood paradise. Her son Samuel sued her, asking for his father’s business interests be liquidated and split between the family. Samuel believed his mother’s vision for Malibu went against his father’s wishes. May and her son never spoke again.
In April of 1917, May Rindge got a break. The State Supreme Court ruled in her favor, declaring all roads in Malibu private property. She constructed new fences which only angered the settlers on her land. One night in February of 1918 a group of drunken men, angered by Rindge’s tyrannical ways, stormed her homestead and traded fire with her private guards. William D. Newell, the most anti-Rindge of the settlers disappeared shortly after. He was never found.
When the United States Supreme Court took up the Rindge eminent domain case in 1922 the population of Malibu was a total twenty people tucked into the canyons above the Rindge estate. In a decision that would kick off the expansion of the National Park system, the Court ruled in favor of “public access to beauty.”
After gunfights, millions of dollars in lawsuits, and decades of defense, The Roosevelt Highway opened and the coastline was open to the world. It was the end of May Rindge’s fight for her private paradise. California’s drivers flocked to the once-forbidden beaches of Malibu.
In attempt to refill the Rindge family coffers, May opened the Malibu Pottery building on a long stretch of beach on the Eastern end of her property. She hired Rufus. B. Keller, an eccentric ceramics master who was fiercely protective of the his glazing methods and designs. World famous Malibu tile, known for its intricate patterns and bright colors can be found in many of Los Angeles’ most-loved buildings, including City Hall.
One of Keller’s proteges, Simon Rodia, would take the broken tiles home with him at the end of the day. Rodia used the broken scraps of Malibu tile to construct his masterpiece Nuestro Pueblo, better know as the Watts Towers, a historic landmark in Los Angeles. His work was so influential that Rodia posthumously found himself on the cover of The Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s” album cover.
While the tile business flourished, the rest of the Rindge business ventures were in freefall. May sold off many of the family’s land holdings in an attempt to stop the financial bleeding. After a fire destroyed the Malibu Pottery building, there was no choice left but to sell off the coastline Frederick and May Rindge fought so hard to protect.
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A real estate tycoon named Harold Ferguson suggested the idea of selling Malibu to Hollywood. He convinced May Rindge to grant 10-year leases to the stars of the motion pictures that were taking the world by storm in the 1920’s. In 1926, Anna Q. Nilsson became the first actress to rent land on the Colony. Marie Prevost was next, followed by Marie Pickford and Charlie Chaplin. Rindge found herself surrounded by the most glamorous people in town. She rarely interacted with them, preferring a landlord/tenant relationship with the stars.
The movie stars hired Hollywood set designers to construct their beach shacks along the coast, often barely more than plywood and drywall. With her Malibu Tile and Movie Colony money, May built her daughter Rhoda a 7-bedroom mansion on Malibu’s picturesque lagoon. Now known as the Adamson House, the grand home (complete with swimming pool) is covered in the finest Malibu tile and is now a historical site dedicated to preserving the history of Malibu.
May Rindge saved the most opulent gesture of her revitalized wealth for herself. She began work on a fifty-four-room mansion that included a swimming pool in the bathroom and a concert hall. She paid for it in gold bonds and gave a significant portion of her Malibu property as security. After decades of battle, May would finally be alone in her palace, free to rule over her Malibu kingdom.
The stock market crash of 1929 saw an end to May Rindge’s dream. She sold off the last of her Malibu land in 1938. She died with $750 in her bank account. Today, when a natural disaster brings traffic to a halt on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu locals refer to is as “Rindge’s revenge.”
