‘Surf City’ Memories : Wave of Zeal for a Huntington Beach Museum

If Natalie Kotsch has her way, the old movie “Beach Blanket Bingo” and others of the bikini party genre soon will be screened regularly near the Huntington Beach Pier.

A sidewalk of the stars--like that along Hollywood Boulevard--bearing the names of great surfers would be created outside surfboard shops and bikini boutiques along Main Street.

It’s all part of the plan by Kotsch and her group for the “Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum and Hall of Fame.”

Kotsch, who never tubed a wave in her life, is nevertheless the effervescent chairwoman of a grass-roots committee of about two dozen that is trying to include a shrine to surfing in the long-awaited redevelopment of the city’s decaying downtown.

Some landmarks near the city pier, like the Golden Bear nightclub, have not survived the wrecking ball. Redevelopment plans for a Mediterranean-style village of shops, restaurants and hotels may eliminate other downtown surf hallmarks like Jack’s Surfboards.

So Kotsch’s group, called the Surf Foundation, wants to mark the sport’s ties to the town and memorialize them in a spot near where it all began.

“It’s not going to be just a musty old artifacts museum,” Kotsch, a realtor, said at her Main Street office as she flipped through the committee’s album of minutes and ideas. “It’s going to have new things. We’re just going to show the world how surfing affects their world and how honorable a sport it is.”

People could experience surfing on a wave-riding machine and visit exhibits of the evolution of surfboards and the influence of Hawaiian shirts on worldwide fashion, Kotsch said.

And there would even be a “woodies” wing devoted to the history of the paneled station wagons favored by surfers, she said.

Reviving a local effort that faded two years ago, the committee includes young and aging surfers, merchants, writers, the editor of Surfer magazine, artists and beach lovers, mostly from Orange County coastal cities. They are currently immersed in writing bylaws, raising funds, designing a logo and casting about for items to exhibit. And in a bid for volunteers, they put up a request on the marquee of the vacant downtown Surf Theater.

City planners who meet regularly with the Surf Foundation have said that they like the concept of a surf museum downtown, but that the plans for nonstop movies and a multiple-wing, curated museum may be overly ambitious.

So far the group’s stockpile of relics--now in private homes and a city storage area--amount to yellowed photographs, some vintage long boards, a donated shell collection, ancient projectors from the Surf Theater and some old surf movies. There is no site, no operating budget.

Still, the committee stands by its goal: to chronicle the history of surfing, from its prehistoric origins in the South Seas to its influence on the downtown economy, the billion-dollar beachwear industry and the entertainment profession.

Because of its excellent surf and rich history of surfing legends, organizers say, Huntington Beach seems to be a natural home for a museum.

Idea Spawned at Other Beaches

It’s an idea that has occurred in only a few other places: Santa Cruz is the site of California’s--maybe the world’s--first surf museum, christened last October. In Encinitas, the California Surf Museum boasts only a few relics and is housed in the lobby of George’s Restaurant. Other cities, like San Diego and San Clemente, have also toyed with the notion.

Ground breaking is planned for this fall on one of Huntington Beach’s first downtown redevelopment projects, Pierside Village, and Kotsch’s group and some city planners say a surf museum might fit in perfectly with those plans. Redevelopment might also provide some funds, said Mike Adams, the city’s principal planner.

Decision Months Away

Adams said state-owned property north of the pier, which the city has leased since February, also has been discussed as a museum site. A final decision is probably months away.

Museums traditionally don’t make money and often don’t even support themselves, which is why the committee is seeking nonprofit status for donations and government assistance, members said.

Moneymaking venture or not, the museum would offer a tribute to the sport’s history--from British navigator Capt. James Cook’s observations of islanders riding long boards on Oahu and Tahiti in 1778 to European missionaries’ decreeing the sport immoral and forbidden a century later.

In 1920, a famous Hawaiian swimmer named Duke Kahanamoku formed the first surfing club in Waikiki. The Duke, referred to by surfers in reverent tones as “the Father of Surfing,” moved later to a beachfront home in Corona del Mar that he shared with Johnny Weissmuller.

Before the Duke died in 1968, surfing had reached worldwide popularity, and competitions were staged internationally. Locals say the Duke often rode the swells near the Huntington Beach Pier. His memory is preserved in a bust at the pier’s base.

Dick Dale, so-called “King of the Surf Guitar,” was a founding member of a 1985 committee that tried to open a national surf museum, but ran out of steam. Dale’s music launched an era of surf music and groups such as the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean.

Plans to Try Again

Dale gave a benefit concert that summer that failed to break even. But he said he will try more benefits and enlist surf musicians in a new push for a museum.

Along with plans for a complete library of surf music, Hollywood also figures into the museum.

“Did you know ‘Beach Party’ grossed more than ‘Cleopatra?’ ” Dale asked.

“People seem to think surfers don’t work and lie around on the beach and do nothing, and either they are teen-age dropouts or old guys with nothing better to do,” Dale said.

Museum organizers said they want to display the positive influences surfing has had on American culture. Norman Finn, 38, a longshoreman from Long Beach who competed in the first three U.S. surfing championships--1960 through 1962--said a museum belongs in Huntington Beach, where the annual OP Pro Surfing Championships are held annually. He said tributes need to be paid to men and women surf champions and to the makers of the boards.

“Huntington is known as ‘Surf City, U.S.A.,’ the capital of surfing,” Finn said.

Judson Stevens, 63, a retired real estate appraiser turned full-time surfer and committee member, said: “Football has a hall of fame. Baseball has one, too. I think surfing is every bit as deserving.”