Concert Sunday : Unique Oasis on the Beach Is Flourishing

A man-made oasis of Mexican fan palms, native shrubs and tough beach grass, which faced the prospect of being uprooted a year ago because of a quirk of bureaucracy, will be the scene Sunday of the second annual Hole-in-the-Fence Beach Club’s concert on the sands.

The free performance by the rock group Cram Jam will start at 1 p.m. in the green spot on Doheny State Beach below the cliffs of Capistrano Beach.

That spot once was a barren stretch of sand. But in the summer of 1985, members of the informal, no-bylaws club named Hole in the Fence began carrying small palms through a gap in the wire fence without asking permission from state officials. They planted a couple of dozen palms before the trouble started.

Rules Against It

At that time, “I told them they couldn’t plant trees there like that,” said Al Oliver, a superintendent in the California Parks and Recreation Department. He said state regulations forbid improvements on a publicly owned beach by private individuals.

For a while it seemed that, to conform to the law, the trees might have to be uprooted. And, Oliver said, “it looked like there might be a little war” between the club members and park officials, a war that could only make the state “look like the bad guys.”

But Doheny State Beach happens to be one of several in the park system that has a group of unpaid civilian volunteers known as the Doheny State Beach Interpretive Assn., which is authorized to accept tax-free donations to improve state parklands.

Led by Ranger Jill Dampier, the association devised a plan under which the volunteers and the beach club members would work together; the state volunteers officially would handle the money and coordinate labor.

“This is a splendid example” of cooperation between public and private groups for the betterment of the park system, Oliver said, and “it appears to be the only undertaking of its kind in the state.”

Plant Life in Abundance

Today, instead of a few rather small palms, the oasis boasts about 80 trees, some of them 10 feet tall, a fine spread of thick grass, and cool shade under the dense native shrubbery.

Bill Calvert of San Clemente and Brad Raymond of Dana Point, two of the prime movers in the club (which has no officers), said there are plans for many more trees and shrubs and even for state-approved restrooms.

To further their goals, the club held its first beach concert a year ago, raising a modest $500 in donations. Calvert and Raymond hope this Sunday’s program, which also will include sale of T-shirts, will do much better.

“The trees and the other improvements we make here are for everybody, for anyone who uses the beach, not just club members,” Calvert said. “The concert will be free, but donations will be very gladly accepted and, of course, will be turned over to the interpretive association.”