PopulationTotal: (1989 est.) 4,9361980-89 change: +27%Median Age:...

Population

Total: (1989 est.) 4,936

1980-89 change: +27%

Median Age: 38.1

Racial/ethnic mix:

White (non-Latino), 90%; Latino, 6%;

Black, Less than 1%; Other, 4%

Racial/ethnic mix:

White: (non-Latino): 90%

Latino: 6%

Black: *%

Other: 4%

By sex and age:

In hundreds

MALES: Median age: 37.0 years

FEMALES: Median age: 39.3 years

Income

Per capita: $23,749

Median household: $58,013

Average household: $63,601

Income Distribution:

Less than $25,000, 15%; $25,000-49,000, 27%; $50,000-74,999, 25%; $75,000-$99,999, 15%; $100,000 and more, 18%

Income Distribution:

Less than $25,000: 15%; $25,000-49,999: 27%; $50,000-74,999: 25%; $50,000-74,999: 25%; $75,000-$99,999: 15%; $100,000 and more: 18%

Years: 0-9 10-14 15-17 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+

FOCUS

Huntington Beach West: A Sense of History

Oil operations, both corporate and independent, share the turf and presumably the wealth in Huntington Beach’s westernmost neighborhood, north of downtown.

Standard Oil discovered oil here on March 24, 1920. The city’s first oil well, on Golden West Street a little north of Clay Avenue, is marked by a monument 800 feet west of the original well. But the site’s perimeter is blocked by chain-link fences and signs warning against trespass.

According to Dennis Groat, spokesman for the Huntington Beach Fire Department’s petrochemical section, the discovery well site is on land leased by Chevron USA. “It is a monument, a large stone (granite) slab and plaque,” designating the location of the first Huntington Beach well. It wasn’t the biggest producer, but it was the first.

The contrasts offered by the neighborhood begin to manifest themselves south of the discovery well. Huntington Beach Union High School, at 1905 Main St., bears an Orange County Historical Site plaque. The site was donated in 1908 by the Huntington Beach Co., which developed the city. And the building in Romanesque Revival architectural style, was erected in 1926. It has a cream-colored facade and arches over the entryway. Arched pathways added later reflect the original architect’s intent. In keeping with an early city atmosphere, a sign on a playing field boasts, “Home of the Oilers.”

Immediately across the street, yet much more distant in style, is the Huntington Beach Civic Center. The four-story structure mirrors the high school in its tan facade, punctuated by horizontal brown stripes. But its simple angles betray a late 20th-Century lineage.

Contrasting styles also carry over to residential areas. Cottages with the feel of an older beach town exist along with more recent condominiums. On Main Street, south of Adams Avenue, the houses are one and two stories with shingle siding or the clapboard style that typifies a beach community. A variety of evergreens--their height conveying both age and elder status--shield the neighborhood from the fierce midday sun.

Nearer the Seacliff Country Club and the ocean, though, more nouveau styles prevail. Gated communities defy public access. Seacliff on the Greens, for example, surrounded by a green wrought-iron fence, is an enclave of multistoried off-white and pink buildings.

Proximity as well as style defines the contrast. In some cases, the splendor of the homes immediately outside the country club is eclipsed by the curiosity of working oil derricks across the street. At the eastern end of the club an oil derrick appears over the tall hedge in the back yard on Quiet Bay Drive.

A sense of inclusion dominates the Seacliff Country Club. To become a member one “must purchase a home in the project first,” explains general manager Perry Dickey--”the project” being Seacliff on the Greens, a development just west of the club.

“Chevron has always owned it,” Dickey says of the club. It has been in existence since 1967, and “went private in 1985”--that is, the public can no longer play the course.

Seacliff has both golf and tennis branches, requiring separate memberships. The golf club, with its 6,900-yard, par 72 championship course, has “approximately 500 members. Club membership costs $25,000 nonequity for golf.” The tennis club, with its $800 initial fee and monthly dues ranging from $85 for an individual member to $100 for a family of four, is more reasonably priced. The marriage of development and club makes for an unusually inclusive arrangement.

Unusual, too, is the neighborhood’s commercial heart. The Seacliff Village Shopping Center, self-proclaimed “more than a typical shopping center,” is indeed that. There is, for example, a comprehensive, informative display of Southern California’s sea and shore birds.

Advice to fishermen on how to release a pelican caught in their lines is offered. In fact, the endangered brown pelican serves as the center’s motif.

In one entrance, iron sculptures of pelicans sit atop wooden pilasters in an eating and sitting area. Painted pelicans also mark pedestrian walkways inside the parking lot, and arrows pointing the direction of traffic have a pelican drawn within each one.

The message from Seacliff Village Shopping Center, with its representations of birds past and present, is, in effect, “remember these birds and preserve them”--a laudable enough sentiment for future and present generations, who should have no trouble recalling the wells.