Man Is Sharing His Viewpoint

Joseph E. Brown Jr. fondly remembers holidays and vacations at a modest house overlooking the ocean in Laguna Beach.

He celebrated his honeymoon there and often visited his parents, who lived for years in the small, two-story home on a bluff with panoramic vistas.

“I loved that house,” said Brown, who lives in Rochester, N.Y., and is retired. “The view was spectacular, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.”

Now, because of his largess, others will have access to the scenic spot off South Coast Highway. Though the house is no longer standing, Brown has donated the land--valued at about $2 million--to the city for a park in his family’s name.

City officials said such a gift of prime seaside property by a private citizen is unprecedented. “I’m not aware of it ever happening before,” said Pat Barry, the city’s director of community services. “This is very unusual, simply because the land is so valuable.”

Brown, who until eight years ago taught graphic arts and photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology, said he is not a wealthy man. He is financially comfortable, a widower with no children, and considers himself rich for once having enjoyed such exclusive access to the coast.

“My family enjoyed it for nearly 60 years,” he said. “Now many families can enjoy it. I had an opportunity in my life that most people never have: to enable thousands of people a year to sit there and look at the ocean, people who would never accumulate the money to buy a condo on the beach.”

Painting Hobby Led to Purchase of Seaside Lot

Brown’s family acquired the property in the mid-1930s when his grandfather Charles A. Bergfeldt closed his tailoring business in Kansas City, Mo., and moved to Orange County after the death of his wife. He married an Anaheim woman, and they would drive to Laguna Beach on weekends where he would pursue his passion for painting.

“This was in the early years of World War II,” Brown said, “and there was tire and gas rationing. One day his wife said, ‘Charlie, maybe we could find a place down here so we don’t have to drive down on the weekends.’”

Fears that the Japanese would invade the West Coast had driven down real estate prices, so the Bergfeldts bought their place for a song, Brown said. In 1941, they settled into the 1920s-era two-bedroom, wood-frame house with a red brick chimney. It sat on a long, narrow lot--25 by 100 feet--between Coast Highway and the sea.

Bergfeldt died three years later. The house eventually went to Brown’s parents, who retired there after renting it out for years.

Brown never lived in the house, but spent almost every vacation in it. “I went out there frequently,” he said by phone from his home in New York, “and expected to keep going out there forever.”

The El Nino storms of 1997 washed away the lower part of the house and a portion of the bluff, rendering the home unstable and uninhabitable. Brown, faced with at least $200,000 in repairs, decided to give the property away.

“How many hearses have you seen pulling U-haul trailers?” he asked. “You can’t take it with you. I could have sold it and used the money for something else, but then what my family could have left would have been gone. I wanted a place where people could come and enjoy the view.”

Grant Helps Pay for Path, Bluff Platform

After taking title to the property in December 1999, the city demolished the remains of the house, which was in the 500 block of South Coast Highway north of Laguna Village and south of Main Beach.

With a $275,000 grant from the California Coastal Conservancy, the city last week broke ground for the park, expected to cost about twice the amount of the grant. Plans call for a 100-foot path winding from the sidewalk to a platform extending up to 20 feet over the bluff. Officials hope to have the work done by mid-June.

“You will get a peek of the ocean from the street,” the city’s Barry said. “Then, as you walk out there, you will be able to get a whitewater view of Main Beach. There aren’t too many spots to view the ocean from Coast Highway. People will be able to go out there and get a great sunset view, including Catalina.”

The site will be called Browns’ Park, a designation to be posted on a plaque.

“It’s named after a whole three generations of my family,” Brown said. “I couldn’t be more pleased.”