CALIFORNIA ALBUM : It’s Like Having a Private Beach : The Pierpont area is cut off from Ventura by a highway and offers visitors scant parking. Mostly, residents have it for themselves.

The beach is nearly always deserted in this pocket of paradise where all streets lead to the sand. Property values are soaring. Children are taught to know and respect the ocean from the day they enter elementary school.

“This is like a private beach,” said Art Murphy, as he sauntered through one early morning. “You go down to Santa Monica or Laguna, and it’s wall-to-wall people.”

What more could a beach-goer want? If, like Murphy, you’re a resident of this secluded slice of sand known as the historic Pierpont neighborhood, absolutely nothing. If you’re a visitor or a merchant, the list is long.

Parking would be nice. So would a bathroom that is more than a portable chemical affair. And affordable rents would be good, too, so that the tourists who trickle in could more easily make the jump from sightseers to citizens.

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The Pierpont area north of Ventura Harbor is home to 1,240 people--a populace that has shrunk by one soul in the past decade--and is isolated from the rest of the city by the Ventura Freeway. On almost every street there are “No Parking” signs, which discourage visitors from staying for long periods of time.

The only available all-day parking is in a tiny, city-owned lot at the end of Seaward Avenue and along Pierpont Boulevard. People can leave their cars for two hours on Seaward, but space is limited. Parking on streets off Pierpont Boulevard is prohibited, and businesses on Seaward have tow-away signs.

“People don’t want to come to this beach--which is fine with everyone who lives here,” said Andy Wright, 29, a Pierpont native sunning himself on the beach.

Although Pierpont’s population has barely changed in the past decade, its demographics have made a definite jump. Residents have more money, more education and a lust for gentrification that is upgrading the geographic anomaly they call home and worrying those it is leaving behind in the race for change.

The neighborhood was subdivided into small lots in the 1920s, said Everett Millais, the city’s community development director. “The original intent of the subdivision was not to be permanent homes. It was marketed as a little, second house type of thing.”

Bob and Carolyn Holycross, a retired couple from Arcadia, said they purchased a single-story house about nine years ago for $150,000. They estimate that it is worth more than $250,000 now. They have rented it out since the purchase, are in the process of upgrading the property, and hope to move in permanently in October.

“We’re looking forward to joining the neighborhood,” said Carolyn Holycross, who was resting on a sand dune and watching her two grandchildren play in the water. “It’s quiet, and we enjoy the beach, but it’s not so far from L.A. that we can’t get there readily.”

But some renters say they worry about getting gradually priced out by the newer, wealthier arrivals. “There are some people who can barely scrape together the rent every month,” said Tom Adams, a 47-year-old management systems analyst who moved to Pierpont a year ago and worries a little about his own rent getting prohibitively expensive.

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Regardless of income level, most residents say they moved to the area to be near the ocean, and the common focus on the beach lifestyle holds the community together. Bathing suits, shorts and T-shirts comprise the dress code. Signs prohibit dogs and alcohol on the beach, but residents tend to look the other way; they consider the sand a mere extension of the back yard.

Pierpont residents are indoctrinated into the lifestyle early. Parents in the neighborhood regularly bring their children to the beach, and the local elementary school makes regular field trips there.

“All classes go to the beach at least once a week,” said Pamela Chasse, principal of Pierpont Elementary School, which has about 270 students from kindergarten to fifth grade. Students learn about marine life and tides. The school mascot is a pelican, and class pictures are taken on the beach.

Regardless of the nearly idyllic beach life here, merchants contend that the isolation and lack of parking sometimes hurt their businesses. But those attributes also ensure a steady stream of local customers who do not want to wander far from home.

“We’re not that big a tourist destination,” said Mike Blue, who owns a fast-food restaurant on Seaward. “This is a jewel in the rough.”