Nowhere else but Malibu - Malibu, California - includes travel information

Sunset, Dec, 1999 by Matthew Jaffe

Come winter, the beach retreat of the stars basks in solitude

They don't write tunes many pop about Southern California any- more. But they still write songs about Malibu.

Last year a song by Hole, the band fronted by erstwhile grunge goddess turned Academy Award presenter Courtney Love, hit the radio waves. Although it had a bit of a '90s edge to it, the song carried with it hints of the classic Southern California mellow sound of the 1970s, especially the message - Oh baby, fly away, yeah, to Malibu - of the sweet redemption to be found here, where the Pacific meets the sand.

It's a reminder of how Malibu survives as perhaps the ultimate expression of a certain postwar Southern California ethic that combines the auto, the beach, a dash of pop culture, and a splash of mysticism. And while no longer the rustic beach retreat that Hollywood discovered when the Malibu Colony first opened in the 1930s, this city of 16,000 is a place that reminds you there is no aromatherapy quite like a big blast of salt air.

Malibu may be synonymous with summer, but winter through spring is the best time of year to visit. The crowds are few, and the freedom and escape that is part of the Malibu legend is most easily experienced (assuming no mud slides are blocking the highway). Here you leave the city behind, cruising along the crumbling, sliding base of the Santa Monica Mountains, the east-west range that walls off Malibu and confines it to a narrow coastal strip: Malibu runs for 27 miles and never extends more than 8 miles inland.

Along this strand, some of the richest and most famous people in the world come to unwind in what for many is a country home of sorts, be it a rambling canyon estate or a beach house wedged between its neighbors but with a southfacing view over the surf that renders density questions decisively moot.

No, money can't buy happiness. But a house along Malibu's exclusive Broad Beach isn't a bad place to come to grips with that grim realization.

Secrets of a small-town shore

Privacy has always been a cherished virtue at Malibu, once Southern California's forbidden paradise, a veritable Tibet-by-the-Sea. Its thoroughfare, the Pacific Coast Highway (State 1), was blasted through only after an epic battle during which May Rindge - whose family controlled the vast Malibu Ranch - fought for decades to prevent incursions onto her land. The fight earned her the sobriquet "the queen of Malibu."

The road opened in 1929. But even today, Malibu guards its secrets jealously. It is entirely possible to zip along those 27 Malibu miles and not get the place. I have a friend from Britain who really doesn't see what the fuss over Malibu is all about. PCH is just a long highway, he says, with lots of garages. And he couldn't find the beach. That's the thing about Malibu: You have to know where to go. Otherwise, it's like seeing a grand set - from backstage.

With some knowledgeable guidance, though, you can have an awfully good time here. The Malibu Country Mart - a cluster of restaurants, playground, and picnic tables - is Malibu's town square, a place to hang out and run into neighbors, or at least their au pairs. Like any small town, Malibu has its local movie theater, where even those names-above-the-titles locals with their own screening rooms will occasionally venture to catch a new release. The historic Adamson House, once the home of Rindge's daughter, has one of the best views on the coast and is filled with spectacular tile from Malibu Potteries, the company Rindge opened to help defray her legal costs.

Especially now, in winter, other Malibu pleasures echo back to the natural beauties that Rindge and later generations of Malibu residents, famous and not, have valued so much: The view of migrating whales from Point Dume. Dolphins and surfers sharing a wave. Avocets and sanderlings skittering alongside Malibu Lagoon. Do these moments create nirvana? Of a sort. And to find it, all you need to do is hop on PCH and, as the song says, fly away to Malibu.

RELATED ARTICLE: The beach life

Great Malibu beaches? There are plenty to choose from. Three pocket beaches off Pacific Coast Highway west of Zuma Beach near Encinal Canyon Rd. - El Matador (left), La Piedra, and El Pescador - are among the prettiest in Southern California. For information, call (805) 488-1827.

Access to the rarefied climes of Broad Beach is available at walkways between the 31100 and 31300 blocks of Broad Beach Rd.; visit at low tide because the beach is private to the mean high-tide line. Also lovely is Surfrider Beach (look for signs for Malibu Lagoon State Beach) at PCH and Cross Creek Rd.

And for whale-watching, try the bluffs at Point Dume State Beach at the end of Westward Beach Rd.

For beach information, call (310) 457-9891; for weather and surf conditions, call 457-9701.

RELATED ARTICLE: Malibu travel planner

The city of Malibu begins about 8 miles west of Santa Monica, then extends for some 27 miles along the Los Angeles County coast, with Pacific Coast Highway (State 1) its main access.