Skimboarding champ Paulo Prietto’s Laguna love story

You can’t go home again, so the saying goes, but a lucky few manage in one way or another to revisit places that hold cherished memories from youth.

Laguna Beach resident Paulo Prietto does it through his favorite sport — skimboarding — at Victoria Beach.

It’s at Victoria Beach — a hidden gem near Thousand Steps Beach and Crystal Cove State Park — where Prietto gathered vivid memories of time spent at his grandparents’ beachhouse, located on the long, white sand south of Victoria Drive.

The house was a gathering place for decades for Prietto and more than 100 extended family members. There, memories were created within the timeless sound of the hypnotic surf.

Prietto and his siblings would camp out on the sand and explore the mysterious Pirate Tower. The 60-foot-tall sandstone structure, which dates to 1926, served as an enclosed staircase to the beach for the homeowner.

At 7, he started learning how to slide on skimboards at Victoria Beach with seven cousins who were close in age.

At 10, he recalled, red-flag conditions at the beach couldn’t halt their play. He got stuck in a riptide and waved to a lifeguard to pull him out. He felt embarrassed that he couldn’t handle himself in the ocean.

Later that day, he sat on the sands and watched his older brothers and uncles surf the strong waves. He told himself: “I better be brave enough to ride the big waves and not need a lifeguard.”

That experience stayed with Prietto, now 32, and motivated him to push himself as a waterman.

He succeeded. Prietto became a three-time world skimboarding champion. (A skimboard is smaller than a surfboard and is used for riding shallow water).

But that beach home, which became the family’s go-to place beginning in the 1960s and was sold in the ‘90s, is rarely far from his mind. In fact, Prietto still sees it when he visits the blue-green waters. He and his wife and children live a half-mile from the three-story, gray and white dwelling.

His father’s home is steps away from Victoria Beach, and his mother lives in nearby Blue Lagoon. Prietto’s numerous aunts, uncles and cousins, though scattered around Orange County and beyond, still return to Victoria Beach for family reunions.

And he’s passing on his love for the ocean and that house to the next generation.

Tanned and fit, skimboards in hand, Prietto guided two toddlers, ages 5 and 3, on the sands of Laguna Beach on a recent afternoon, while his wife carried their third son, a 2-month-old.

By all appearances, the family has a life as beautiful and expansive as the Pacific Ocean glistening before them.

“This is where I started,” said Prietto, now a real estate agent, as he watched his kids splash in the water. “As a father, getting to share with them the sport of skimboarding here is so special. The ocean and this beach — it’s part of our heritage.”

And as if on cue, a relative walked up to him.

“Hey, Tomas,” Prietto said. “This is my uncle.”

One of his many uncles.

Prietto’s paternal grandparents raised 12 children in Pasadena. For a romantic getaway, the two would visit Laguna Beach in the 1960s. That is when they found an advertisement for a duplex in the coastal town. They walked to the property, which was on the sand overlooking Victoria Beach, and came across a man standing on the porch.

The man living there had gone to high school with Prietto’s grandfather. And that man was the father of Bob McKnight, the founder of Quiksilver, the surf clothing company.

Prietto’s grandparents purchased the duplex for a summer getaway, later converting it to the current single-family home. It allowed them and their 12 children to visit Laguna each summer, when the clan could explore the coast and befriend locals.

The 12 children grew up and had children of their own. Prietto counts about 50 first cousins. His grandparents died over 20 years ago.

Peter Prietto, one of the 12 children, and friend Tex Haines co-founded the first skimboarding manufacturing company, Victoria Skimboards, in Laguna Beach in 1976. Peter taught all his nephews skimboarding.

“It was like a carnival,” Tomas Prietto, a Dana Point resident, recalled of times gone by. “Everybody would be on the beach camped out, and it became this safe place because we knew everybody.”

Paulo and his older brother would finish class at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana and head to Laguna to catch waves.

They learned how to progress in the sport and loved to compete against each other.

Three years later, Prietto lost his brother.

“I put more time and commitment into myself and into the ocean,” he said, noting that he told his mother he’d become a professional skimboarder.

He entered his first skimboarding contest at age 17 and later competed in the United Skim Tour, placing first for three consecutive years.

After he took on management of his family’s portfolio, Prietto began working in the real estate industry, where he has been for the past nine years, specializing in Laguna Beach properties with Villa Real Estate.

Having spent his childhood years in Laguna Beach, he feels deep roots.

“It’s fun stuff to drive around town with a bona fide ‘beach hero,’” said his colleague, Villa Real Estate agent Mike Johnson. “We can’t go a few blocks without running into someone who knows him.”

When Prietto isn’t welcoming potential buyers in a city that he described as place where people can access the beauty of the outdoors, he teaches skimboarding lessons to beginners, ages 6 and up, in his Solag Skim School.

Since he first rode the waves 25 years ago, Prietto said, his two youngest have competed in their first skimboarding contest. It took place in Newport Beach three weeks ago.

“It’s like a never-ending summer,” Prietto said. “It’s a special place that just has me, and now my kids, wanting to keep coming back.”