Newport Beach City Hall installation gets Centennial Mayor’s ‘seal’ of approval

A handful of locals unofficially celebrated a homecoming at Newport Beach City Hall on May 8, when public works employees installed an 8.5-foot wooden city seal on an exterior wall facing Civic Center Drive.

Kept under wraps since 2013 — after being removed from outside the former City Council Chambers when that building was decommissioned — the civic work of art was recently retrieved from the city’s utilities yard and gussied up for rehanging.

But it nearly took an act of Congress, at least the municipal version, to get the piece in place.

A Newport Beach work crew installs a city seal outside City Hall on May 8.

(Courtesy of Don Webb)

Led by former Mayor Don Webb and backed by a passel of past city leaders, the effort took nearly a year to go from idea to installation.

“The seal itself, in my opinion, is quite a masterpiece,” said Webb, who helmed the City Council during the city’s 100-year anniversary in 2006, and so earned the distinction of “Centennial Mayor.”

“To me, it’s assembled in Newport, and we should be proud to show it in its beautiful colors for anybody who visits City Hall. And we can now do that.”

Emblazoned with sailboats on an open ocean, water ripples hearkening the ocean and the bay, two albacore tuna indicating the city’s origin as a fishing village and surrounded by a circle with four cardinal compass points, the emblem has represented Newport Beach since 1957.

That’s when famed California scene painter and Corona del Mar resident Rex Brandt, working under a city commission, created the initial rendering, which the council adopted to serve as the mark used for any official city business.

Brandt died in 2000 and was recognized by the Arts Commission in 2014, in honor of what would have been his 100th birthday, with a showing of his art. A memorial plaque stands outside his home and studio, “Blue Sky,” near the Goldenrod Footbridge, indicating the spot as an Historic Point of Interest.

Newport Beach City Councilmember Robyn Grant and former Mayor Don Webb, top row, with Mayor Joe Stapleton, from left, Councilmember Sara Weber and Public Works Director Dave Webb pose with a refurbished city seal.

(Courtesy of Don Webb)

Tradesmen in the city’s sign shop in 1992 carved two giant wooden seals from Brandt’s design, which were placed outside City Hall and also on the city’s lifeguard headquarters building. The second one has stayed put for the duration, but the fate of the civic center seal has been somewhat choppy.

The insignia was displayed in two locations at the former Civic Center, at 3300 Newport Blvd., but was not returned to a place of prominence when Newport Beach City Hall moved to its current location in 2013.

Webb began petitioning the council last year about restoring the city seal to a place of prominence at City Hall. He reached out to Councilman Erik Weigand, who was amenable to the idea.

Weigand recalled first seeing the wooden emblem while touring the city’s utilities yard as a newly elected council member in 2022. Public Works Director Dave Webb (no relation to Don Webb) described it as the best interpretation of Brandt’s original design.

So when Don Webb approached him about bringing the matter to a future council meeting, he helped bring the topic to the agenda and discussion during a Nov. 19 meeting.

Officials ultimately approved the installation, on the spot where a metallic facsimile of the seal had been placed in 2013. The location, across from the sculpture garden at Civic Center Park, seemed ideal, Weigand said Wednesday.

After more than 12 years in storage, a refurbished Newport Beach city seal sign was recently installed outside City Hall.

(Courtesy of Don Webb)

“People already come to look at art now, and it’s a piece of art — a piece of the city’s history. I thought it was a good place for it,” he said. “It just needed a home, so by putting it on City Hall, it was finally home.”

As luck would have it, Don Webb happened to be at City Hall on May 8 when he saw public works employees installing the wooden seal on Civic Center Drive. Mayor Joe Stapleton, along with City Council members Robyn Grant and Sara Weber, who had been nearby, posed for photos with the emblem.

“There’s definitely a sense of having accomplished something,” the Centennial Mayor said Tuesday. “I’m very proud to have that as a city seal, and I’m proud I had something to do with having it reinstalled at City Hall.”