And Now the Coast Is Here

The cameras were rolling and one of Hollywood’s biggest producers was watching.

And on Thursday, an excited group was auditioning for what could be this summer’s hottest feature: Malibu beach-going.

Coastal-access advocates set foot on the sand at Tinseltown titan David Geffen’s sprawling beachfront estate, some for the first time, celebrating the opening of a 9-foot-wide public pathway to the ocean.

Creation of the walkway came after Geffen reluctantly made good on a 22-year-old legal promise to let the public onto part of Carbon Beach, a mile-long stretch of sand east of the Malibu Pier. The public will have access to the path as well as most of the beach in front of the Geffen estate.

Geffen had installed video security cameras that scanned the paved path off Pacific Coast Highway and every inch of beachfront in front of his house. The cameras were watching for “trespassers” stepping out of the public right of way and onto his private sand.

Several times during the Thursday visit, a security guard came out to order visitors off Geffen’s property. Once, a guard demanded that a beach umbrella leaning several inches over the imaginary boundary line be moved.

As one of Geffen’s cameras zeroed in on them from about 15 feet away, visitors stood on the walkway and hoisted champagne classes toward its lens. As if on cue, dolphins frolicking a few yards offshore leaped into view as the group raised its toast.

“The ability to enjoy these dolphins and get in the sand is the right of everybody,” said Sara Wan, a member of the state Coastal Commission. “The public owns this beach. The public has a right to get to this beach.”

Sam Schuchat, executive officer of the state Coastal Conservancy, said the Carbon Beach walkway is the first new beach access point opened in Malibu in two decades. Three additional Malibu beach entryways are planned, Paul Thayer, head of the state Lands Commission, told the group.

Aside from invited guests taking part in the ceremony beneath chilly, overcast skies, Carbon Beach was deserted on Thursday -- except for Malibu resident Jayna Mims and her 8-month-old son, Ryder.

Mims lives across PCH from Geffen. She hurried over when she saw that the walkway’s two gates were open.

“I’ve lived here 12 years and have never been able to cross the street and go to the beach,” she said as her son played in the sand.

“We could see it and smell it, but we couldn’t touch it.”

The white wooden gates will officially open to the public at 10 a.m. Monday, said Steve Hoye, head of Access for All, the nonprofit group that will oversee the beach path.

He said workers would be hired to monitor both the walkway and the public’s use of beach areas in front of Geffen’s enclave from sunrise to sunset daily through Labor Day.

Geffen did not attend the noontime ceremony.

But Hoye had kind words for the Hollywood mogul, who had pledged in 1983 to open a public pathway to the beach in exchange for Coastal Commission permission to build his Cape Cod-style compound across several beachfront lots.

“In the end, Mr. Geffen has done the right thing. We’re going to try to be the best neighbors we can,” Hoye said.

Signs identifying the pathway to PCH passersby will be erected, Hoye said. Eventually, he hopes to install automatic timer-controlled locks on the walkway’s gates so they do not have to be manually unlocked in the morning and relocked at night, he said.

Beach surveillance cameras aside, the issue of public easement through Geffen’s oceanfront property has been closely watched both in California and elsewhere. Geffen’s fight gained national attention when he was lampooned in Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” comic strip.

Hoye said an effort may be made to secure permission to name Geffen’s pathway after a Doonesbury character.

Geffen, a movie and music producer ranked by Forbes magazine as the 40th-richest American, has an estimated net worth of $4 billion. He made his initial fortune in the music industry, then co-founded the film studio DreamWorks SKG.

Access for All assumed responsibility for the beach path after the city of Malibu, Los Angeles County and the Coastal Conservancy declined to do so. The public agencies contended that they had neither the money nor the personnel needed to manage such walkways.

In 2002, Geffen sued in an unsuccessful attempt to block the beach entryway, arguing that Access for All lacked the resources to take care of it and that such an easement violated state environmental rules and his own property rights.

Hoye’s group is providing liability insurance and will pay the walkway monitors. Those workers will help beachgoers determine where they can place their blankets and umbrellas without angering Geffen or his guards.

“It is a little complicated,” acknowledged Linda Locklin, the Coastal Commission’s coastal access program manager. “It’s determined by the mean high tide line, and that changes every day. Only the courts can determine where the mean high tide line is.”

According to Geffen’s “vertical and lateral” public access agreement, the 9-foot-wide walkway easement extends from PCH to the ocean. East of that is a 51-foot gap, followed by a 225-foot-long public area.

The public will be banned from a 10-foot “privacy buffer” near a seawall beneath Geffen’s swimming pool and guest house.

Beachgoers will be permitted on the sand on the ocean side of the mean high tide line in front of the other multimillion-dollar homes that line Carbon Beach. Generally speaking, that translates to “wet sand” areas, according to officials.

Hoye said Access for All would be watching closely to make sure the Carbon Beach opening went smoothly.

And Geffen’s cameras are likely to be watching too.