The Sunset Strip of the Highway : One Block Wide and 26 Blocks Long, Town Revels in Its Slightly Offbeat Nature

There are no signs marking the beginning or end of Sunset Beach.

Cruising down Pacific Coast Highway between Seal Beach and Huntington Beach on a cool afternoon in early summer, you could miss the whole town if you didn’t know it was there.

Most residents say they like it that way.

“The place is 26 blocks long and one block wide,” declares Willie Graham, 43, a salesman who began surfing here in 1959 and decided to stay. “It has 34 places to buy alcohol, no churches, no schools, a volunteer fire department, no mail service and the cops have to come from Santa Ana. It’s a unique town.”

To set the record straight, another resident who claims to have counted says there are only 25 places to buy alcohol along this 1.3-mile stretch of highway. Thirteen of them, he says, are across the street on the non-ocean side in what is technically Huntington Harbour.

Yet driving past this strip by the sea is like stepping into a bit of the woolly Old West. There is no planning because there is no city here--it is unincorporated county area. Funky buildings bump up against the flyby traffic of Pacific Coast Highway. Burly biker bars sit next to dainty flower shops. And in the absence of door-to-door mail service, residents congregate at a small post office where they pick up letters and discuss the news of the day.

The overall effect is slightly offbeat, sort of like a puzzle with some pieces missing.

The town begins at its north end with an 89-foot-tall water tower that has been a landmark since World War II. In 1984, a local physician and his partner bought it and converted it into a luxurious home on stilts featuring a 360-degree panoramic view. The structure has been on the market for three years now, and is currently listed for $2.4 million.

“I’d like to sell it to a rock star,” says Dr. Bob O’Dell, the anesthesiologist who lives there.

Just down the street is Turc’s, a 40-year-old bar decorated with abalone shells and two saltwater aquariums. Next comes the Harbor House Cafe, Woody’s Diner, and then Mother’s, a local institution that started out as a railroad ticket office and now serves lots of beer. It almost always has at least one Harley Davidson parked outside.

And finally, just before passing the Jack-in-the-Box marking the end of Sunset and the beginning of the open road on to Huntington Beach, you hit King Neptune’s Nautical Museum and Restaurant, a bizarre institution featuring seafood, mixed drinks and more naval uniforms, hats, sabers and guns than you’ve ever seen in your life.

Behind this bustling facade, however, is another Sunset Beach. It is the quiet greenbelt between the businesses and the row of beach houses bordering the sand. Here people walk their dogs, play with children, visit their neighbors--in short, do all the things that people everywhere do but with the smell of salt in their nostrils.

“It’s a very friendly community,” says Marion Bloeser, 64, who lived here on and off for eight years before moving aboard her boat. Now, standing in the parking lot on the greenbelt, she’s back to visit a friend. “This is my home away from home,” Bloeser says. “It’s beautiful. The surfing isn’t as good as at some other places, but the beach is gorgeous.”

It is the wide empty beach behind the houses, in fact, that draws many of the residents and visitors. Because parking is sparse and the area not well known, sunbathers are not abundant here. Those who do come find a quiet wide-open seashore awash in the soothing sound of water rushing over sand. Residents even boast that you can still find sand dollars here, those perfectly round little seashells that are almost impossible to find anywhere else.

And it is here that another kind of dollar washes regularly up on the sand. It is real currency, made of green paper, in denominations of $5, $10, $20 and $50. For years the money has been periodically washing up on the shore, but nobody knows just why or where from. Most recently it happened last summer, when beachcombers recovered more than $200 in water-soaked bills.

All of which contributes to the feeling of magic and timelessness here. It is the slightly out of kilter reality that comes of endless hours in the glistening sun and sand amid the certainty that all needs are met in this hidden abyss along the Coast Highway trail.

“People here take care of each other,” asserts Lex Webster, 53, a bartender at Mother’s where she is the self-appointed “cruise director of the ship of life” and sort of a local landmark.

Twenty-eight years ago, Webster says, she was driving down Pacific Coast Highway when she spotted a shabby beach house for rent by the side of the road. She decided to rent it, she says, because it resembled a vacation house from her childhood.

“I’ve had three men in my life who said, ‘Lexie, are you going to come with me or stay in this old beach shack for the rest of your life?’ ” the barmaid recalls.

So far she’s remained at the beach.

“I don’t want to live anywhere else,” she sighs, leaning over the bar. “I hope I die here.”