Museum Is Still Looking for Its Spot in the Sun

It’s a sort of Smithsonian of surfing.

Jammed with ancient surfboards and old photographs of the greats, the California Surfing Museum in Encinitas is quickly becoming something of a fixture along the San Diego County coast.

Since opening its doors nearly a year ago in a donated suite in a new coastal shopping complex, the museum has played host to more than 2,000 visitors, organizers say.

Eager to maintain a fresh approach to the past, the museum’s all-volunteer staff is preparing for a barbecue Saturday to kick off a new six-month exhibition of old wooden boards and photographs, many of them never before on public display.

Plank From the 1900s

“For the real history fan, we’ve got some great stuff,” said Jane Schmauss, a museum organizer and owner of George’s restaurant, an Encinitas eatery that often displays the historic boards. “We’ve got a plank that has to date to the 1900s.”

As yet, however, the institution’s board of directors has been unable to land a permanent home for the surf museum.

“We’re still surfing and still dreaming,” said Stuart Resor, a local architect and the organization’s president. “It will probably be several years before we’re settled for good. But that could change if we get booted out of the place we are. We’re real comfortable there now, so the pressure’s not on. Like anyone else, we’ll react to the pressure when we have to move.”

Resor said he still hopes the museum can attract someone willing to donate a historic home that could be moved to an appropriate site near the water, perhaps near the public parking lot at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas. He noted that several older homes are being eyed for removal in the Mid-City section of San Diego to make room for an extension of Interstate 15.

“If someone has an old house we can use, that would be great,” Resor said. “It’d be even better if it has real high ceilings. One old fiberglass board we have from the Mission Beach Plunge is about 18 feet long.”

While the hunt for a permanent home continues, the outfit has made itself comfortable in a back suite in Moonlight Plaza, a shopping center completed a year ago near Encinitas Boulevard and the Coast Highway. Paul Rotschek, developer of the plaza, donated the space to the nonprofit museum for the cost of utilities and taxes, Resor said.

Continued the Hunt

Although the group had a sizable stock of artifacts from surfing’s golden years in hand even before setting up shop in the plaza, the museum staff has continued to hunt down interesting and rare items in recent months.

Many of those will be on display during the upcoming exhibition, dubbed “Iron Men and Wooden Boards.” Surfboards dating mostly from the 1920s to the ‘50s will be featured, some of them made of redwood and balsa.

In addition, black-and-white stills from the 1940s by longtime surf photographer Doc Ball, one of the first shutterbugs ever to venture into the water to capture the art of riding waves, will be displayed. Vintage motion picture footage of old-time surfers will also be shown throughout the afternoon Saturday.

“This exhibit will have some truly classic old wooden boards,” Resor said. “People will be able to see them and touch them to really get a feel for where surfing came from and how far it’s gone since that era.”

The barbecue kicks off at 3 p.m. and lasts until 6, but visitors can still get a peek at the various artifacts in the coming months because the museum is open all day on weekends.

As always, Resor said, the organization is eager for surfing buffs to donate old boards or other relics of bygone days. As a tax-exempt outfit, the museum can grant write-offs for equipment that might otherwise fetch a few bucks at a garage sale.

“The main thing is there are lots of interesting surf artifacts literally rotting away in people’s attics, under the porch or in the garage, old pictures of old-time surfers in people’s scrap books, that sort of stuff,” Resor said. “It would be great to have it. . . . There must be some surfers out there somewhere who need a tax deduction.”