Getting to know Laguna Beach by foot

“Follow me to the White House,” the tour guide said, “and I’ll show you where Franklin Roosevelt passed by in a motorcade.”

In Laguna Beach, the White House can mean only one thing, a 98-year-old bar-restaurant that is almost certainly among the oldest buildings in Orange County.

The guide, David Shermet, was leading guests on a tour of the city’s highlights.

In 1938, Roosevelt, the commander in chief at the time, was greeted by a parade when he was en route to San Diego from Los Angeles, and Coast Boulevard — as Pacific Coast Highway was known then — was the only way to get there.

Being able to share such historical moments is among the reasons Shermet enjoys showing the city off on foot.

It’s also why nearly three months ago, he and girlfriend Debra Henninger created the Laguna Beach Free Walking Tour, the latest walking tour in the city catering to locals as well as the approximately 3 million annual visitors to the city.

Janelle Naess, avid pedestrian and 17-year resident of Laguna Beach, isn’t one to throw cold water on the attempts of others. But Naess, who has led her own groups as the owner of Laguna Beach Walking Tour, welcomes newcomers to the tour game, but wonders about those who live outside the city.

Shermet and Henninger have lived in Irvine for nearly three years.

It’s not known how many walking tours are offered throughout the city, Naess said, since anyone may start one on a whim.

Ann Larson, Laguna Beach’s assistant community development director, said people conducting walking tours are required to file a business license with the city, though she conceded that the tour industry in Laguna Beach is unregulated.

The business licenses for walking tours are part of the “personal service” listings, so it’s not even clear how many operate in the city, Larson said. She added that these endeavors must be offered for free if they involve public property.

Naess, who led groups for four years but now offers three free self-guided walking tours — her website offers pictures and descriptions of each spot on free printable maps — is also concerned about tour directors failing to have the proper liability insurance.

“We’re here to promote Laguna Beach,” Shermet said. “We count it as our community because we’re there every day.”

Before offering the tours, he said, he and Henninger would spend several days a week in Laguna, enjoy the surroundings and activities.

Shermet and Henninger might say they were destined to start a tour.

Shermet is a 22-year veteran of the cruise industry who worked as a cruise director for four luxury liners, and Henninger is a trail guide with the Irvine Ranch Conservancy, a nonprofit that aims to protect wildlands and parks on the historic Irvine Ranch.

After the couple had taken a walking tour in Seattle, Wash., they thought about implementing the idea in a city they loved visiting.

To glean more information about the public works of art, historical facts and places of interests for a route that he and Henninger had drafted after several walks together, Shermet headed to the Laguna Beach Historical Society, talked with Laguna Beach locals and read books on Laguna Beach.

Their two-hour tour begins at the Festival of the Arts’ entrance, where Shermet discusses the venue’s annual Pageant of the Masters, a stage show of living pictures, or tableaux vivants, that started in 1933.

From there, he and Henninger will lead a group on a 1.5-mile walk to a dozen or so landmarks in Heisler Park and along Forest Avenue, Pacific Coast Highway and Main Beach.

Laguna Beach is full of surprising discoveries and little-known trivia, Shermet said.

Consider the gold-colored fire hydrant in front of the Laguna Beach Fire Department headquarters.

It’s polished four times a week.

Or the red telephone box on Forest Avenue.

The public telephone, representative of London’s iconic crimson booths, has been situated on the sidewalk since the 1940s, and it served as a working phone until 2009. Today, artists are commissioned to create sculptures for the display — that go inside or wrap around the historical point of interest to lend a little artistic whimsy.

And St. Ann’s Drive, a launching point for surfing and bodyboarding, which remain popular activities, served as an excavation site in 1933 when teenagers discovered prehistoric skeletal remains of a woman 17,000 years old.

No matter the tour to embark on, the seaside resort will not fail in delivering beauty for art lovers, nature enthusiasts and beachgoers, Naess said.

“Even if you live here, you’ll hear of things you’ve never heard of before,” Shermet said. “I wanted it to be educational and hopefully it’s entertaining and fun.”

For more information, visit lagunabeachfreewalkingtour.com and lagunabeachwalks.com.

kathleen.luppi@latimes.com

Twitter: @KathleenLuppi