A 90-Year Harbor Tour in Just Two Hours

To celebrate Newport Beach’s 90th birthday this month, I took the two-hour boat cruise around its harbor. It’s a chance for a close-up look at “where the millionaires come to play,” Pavilion Queen captain Gary Cate likes to tell his passengers. It’s an Orange County many of us don’t know much about, but we could quickly learn to get used to.

The two-deck Pavilion Queen is docked next to the Balboa Pavilion, the magnificent, historic structure (once a bathhouse, once a gambling hall, once a dance hall) older than the city itself, on the water at the end of the Balboa Peninsula’s Main Street. As we pulled away from the dock, I could picture the old Red Line hauling its passengers to the end of its rail tracks right at the Pavilion’s door.

It was a beautiful day, with a wonderful sky, perfect for relaxing, as the large boat slowly moved through the smooth water in the harbor. I couldn’t count all the boats, or the pelicans, but the captain put the number of vessels in the harbor at 25,000.

The first half of the tour takes you past the great waterfront mansions of the wealthy. The captain pointed out two that sold for $14 million and $19 million, making their owners about the priciest neighbors in the county.

The most impressive homes belong to well-known names George Argyros (development) and William Lyon (construction). The old John Wayne home now owned by Robert and Beverly Cohen--whose also possessions include the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills--is on the tour. Most impressive is the Cohens’ yacht, the P’zazz, which Capt. Cate estimated to be as valuable as the house ($6 million-plus).

Farther along, it was fun to see where Shirley Temple grew up, where Buddy Ebsen lived for years and where Joey Bishop still lives today. And John Wayne’s Wild Goose, the old minesweeper-turned-yacht, is still around.

But the best part of the tour was how our guide blended a discussion of the harbor’s history with the sights we were seeing.

When the government dredged the harbor in the 1920s, workers stacked the sand in seven piles. They now make up seven of the city’s eight islands (tiny Bay Island is the only natural island). Here’s how Cate described some of that real estate:

“Visitors from Los Angeles [in the late 1920s] were offered a free boat ride and free hot dogs to come down and take a look. They were selling lots for $300. Today, those same lots are $80,000--a foot.”

The captain described which corporate presidents owned which homes and yachts. His suggestion that Fashion Island and Newport Center in the distance were the “Wall Street of the West” might have been a stretch. But otherwise his information delighted all his passengers.

The only other crew member I saw on board was the bartender (perhaps an essential staff member for some). Go during the week if you can; the crowds are down and you can roam the boat freely. There were only 10 passengers on my cruise. I asked one of them, Betty Stacy of Chattanooga, Tenn., what she thought of it. She was newly retired and visiting family in Garden Grove.

“The rich certainly know how to live--and where,” she said.

The Price: You can take the first 45 minutes of the trip for $6 (children $1, free under 5). Then it returns to the dock for a brief intermission. If you want the second 45-minute trip, which goes out toward the mouth of the harbor, you can add another $2. Most pay the $8 upfront. The boat departs on the hour, between 11 a.m and 4 p.m. daily. And don’t be late; it leaves the shore promptly.

The Duke’s Home: John Wayne lived in that waterfront chateau from 1966 until his death in 1979. If you’ve seen it along the harbor, you might be interested in this paragraph from Aissa Wayne’s book, “John Wayne, My Father”: “ . . . a one-story, 10-room, 7-bath white ranch house with a pool, sitting right at the tip of Bayshore Drive. My father loved our new house. . . . It afforded a vast, spectacular view of Balboa Island, Lido Island, and foremost, the bay, with its channels of green and blue and hazel waters.

“He felt so comfortable, he remained unfazed even when [a boat] cruised by, affording its shutter-happy tourists an intimate view of John Wayne.”

Helena’s Hideaway: One of the most interesting islands in the harbor is Bay Island, the natural island, once known as Sand Island. Helene Modjeska, the great stage actress, bought the island for $300 just before city incorporation, our cruise leader told us, and divided it into 13 lots, which she shared only with her friends.

One of her policies: No one new could move onto the island without the approval of the other residents. Capt. Cate says that’s still true today, and eight of the original families still own homes there.

Wrap-Up: You can get a different perspective on the harbor’s development by visiting the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum, on what used to be the old Reuben E. Lee in the Balboa Marina. Though still developing, the museum offers a plethora of model ships (such as those sailed by Christopher Columbus), boating equipment and sea-related artifacts.

But it also includes some of the most spectacular blow-up photography you will find on the development of the harbor, beginning from before the turn of the century. There are also two short movies you can view, both well worth the time. One is a fascinating set of films about the harbor’s development, the other someone’s home movies, showing scenes from the hurricane of ’39 which hit the coast.

You can also buy copies in the gift shop ($20 for the harbor film, $14.95 for the hurricane).

At day’s end, after I’d soaked up all that rich harbor history, I almost got run over at a crosswalk by a dark-green Rolls Royce, the sweetest-looking thing on four wheels, when the driver almost ran a stop sign.

It’s an Orange County you’d have to get used to.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling The Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax at (714) 966-7711 or by e-mail at jerry.hicks@latimes.com