For a unique glimpse of ‘Crystal Cove State Park Magic’ please view YouTube video, by clicking on the direct link below to view...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmhps0uktrY
[Winter ‘09]
Putting More of our Resources into
Educational Programs
Reducing printing is both environmentally and economically sound and CCA is going to slowly and strategically move to an online-only eNewsletter during 2010. For the next several issues, we will publish both printed and digital newsletters. We know that your email boxes fill quickly, but hope that you will support our effort by continuing to provide us with your email contact. Our goal is to put more money toward our mission of restoration and education. With the efficiency of our new eNewsletter, the Wave at Crystal Cove, we can better involve you as a member in the Crystal Cove community. You can look forward to a quarterly eNewsletter with a calendar of events, notices of special impromptu gatherings, educational articles, progress reports on cottage restoration, and news from the Park and Marine Research Center. We hope you enjoy our first edition. Please feel free to give us your comments at: http://newscrystalcovealliance.blogspot.com
Sincerely,
Harry Helling - President
First Ever
“Prohibition & Jazz on the Beach” Event
September 26, 2009
We hope that everyone reading this, all of our friends and supporters, will be joining us for our biggest event of the year — Prohibition Party and Jazz on the Beach on Saturday, September 26th. We will be taking you back in time to when rum was running and jazz was hot! We could not think of a better place to create an authentic 1930 speakeasy than in the middle of Crystal Cove's historic district, ironically established during the Prohibition era of 1920 — 1933. If you want to know more about Prohibition you can come see our exhibition Running Dry in the Cove, read a library book, or you can go online and buy tickets to the best beach party anywhere… your choice! For press release and event details go to: www.crystalcovealliance.org
Education Report
Tens of thousands of park visitors enjoy new education programs!
Imagine spending the day as a 1920’s plein-air artist (The Great Plein Air Art Experience) or taking parent-child art lessons out of a historic tent (Aunt Kate’s Juice and Art Club). How about eating historic candy in the old Cove store (Shorty’s Historic District Fun Tour) or holding a live Cove snake (Junior Ranger Program)? These are just a few of the new educational programs that you have supported by becoming a member of CCA. Your membership has enabled CCA to launch these programs along with an innovative public exhibition this summer, benefitting tens of thousands of park visitors. Crystal Cove Alliance also supports the ‘Parks Online Resources for Teachers and Students’ (PORTS) program that uses videoconferencing to annually connect over 5,000 underserved K-12 students in their classrooms with naturalists in the tide pools. In addition, CCA provides funding for educational equipment and supplies, volunteer programs, and signs and brochures benefitting over 1.3 million visitors to Crystal Cove each year.
Our new exhibition Running Dry in the Cove: Prohibition Era at Crystal Cove, displayed in cottage #46, helps to bring the Historic District to life. The exhibit allows visitors to see historic artifacts (prohibition bottles collected from the Cove), listen to old time Cove residents talk about life during Prohibition (new digital access to the Laura Davick oral history collection), and view era-appropriate images of the Cove (from the Laura Davick archival photograph collection). The exhibition culminates with CCA’s first-ever Prohibition Party and Jazz on the Beach event.
Have you ever wanted to collect grunion eggs in a late-night expedition, learn gnatcatcher calls to assist with threatened bird counts, or count hermit crabs for a tide pool protection program? Since January, CCA has helped to open the Park and Marine Research Facility, operated out of cottage #22. The facility will operate as a research field station and has already attracted prominent researchers from six major universities to help us better understand and manage our park. Each of those research projects will have a role in our next exhibition entitled SNAP (Science and Nature at the Park) - where park visitors (and especially our members!) will be invited to participate in important research projects from October through February.
Crystal Cove Alliance Helping out
State Parks in time of Need
These are difficult times for our treasured California State Parks. Deep cuts in the recently approved state budget include a $14M budget reduction to State Parks this fiscal year. This cut may force the closure of more than 100 State Parks, resulting in additional park revenue losses which will further compound the crisis. Cuts of this magnitude will force substantial park use fee increases for the parks that remain open, and reduced visitor services. By the time you read this, parking fees here will have increased to $15/day. Though we do not believe Crystal Cove State Park will be on the closure list to be posted just after Labor Day, we can certainly look forward to many difficult challenges and choices in the coming days.
We are in daily discussions with State Parks and we want to assure our members that park managers are highly qualified and committed to maintaining the highest quality experience for all park visitors. We all wish parks could just be free for everyone to enjoy. Unfortunately in the present economic climate, State Parks will be looking for new economic models that can help to support operations.
CCA will be helping to create innovative public partnerships that can bring needed resources to the park while preserving the integrity of State Park System for future generations. CCA has already raised over $3 million toward a Phase II restoration, scheduled to begin in early 2010. You can help protect your State Parks by: contributing to CCA, voicing your concern about park budget reductions to your elected officials, helping as a volunteer, and encouraging your employer to get involved in some form of partnership. Please help our State Parks!
For the current ‘The Wave at Crystal Cove’ eNewsLetter, please click on the direct link below to download via PDF . . .
CrystalCoveBeachCottages.org/files/CCA_Winter09.pdf
By Karin Gallagher
CRYSTAL CLEAR
Up the coast, the Crystal Cove State Park Historic District offers a reprieve from everyday life and a look back in time.
Less than 20 miles from San Clemente, up the twisting Pacific Coast Highway, you can ‘step back in time’ to a preserved sliver of California coastal history. To a three-mile stretch of beach that looks today nearly the same way it did nearly a century ago. To the remnants of a unique community cobbled together out of the flotsam of the film industry and the jetsam of Poseidon's pantry. And you don't need a time machine to get there, either.
Crystal Cove State Park Historic District, 12.3 acres within the nearly 3,000-acre Crystal Cove State Park, is perhaps most famous for its 46 rustic cottages originally built between the 1920s and 1950s—some of which first served as movie sets. In addition to the cottages that still line the shore and bluff, families of campers once spent entire summers in tents—or cabañas—right on the beach.
“It was a set for Hollywood filmmakers during the silent-film boom, a drop-off spot for Prohibition-era rumrunners, a destination for motorists during the early auto-touring movement, a staging ground for postwar tiki parties and luaus, and a continual source of inspiration for nearby Laguna's famed art community,” writes Laura Davick, one of three co-authors of Crystal Cove Cottages: Islands in Time on the California Coast .
Today Davick, who grew up in Cottage #2, serves as the founder and President Emeritus of the Crystal Cove Alliance (CCA), the nonprofit organization that was formed in 1999 and helped defeat plans to demolish the cottages and turn the area into a luxury hotel resort.
Due to CCA's efforts to protect, preserve and restore the historical district, 13 unique cottages—10 individual and three dormitory-style—have been made available as overnight rentals to the general public since June 2006; nine other cottages are used for visitor-serving functions, including operational support, concessions and the check-in office. “We are focused on trying to raise the necessary funds to restore the remaining 24 cottages so that we will be able to bring 17 of those online for overnight rentals,” says Davick, who estimates it will require about $20 million to complete the project.
But despite that hefty figure, prices remain most reasonable and significantly below market rates. Reservations go on sale on the first of every month at 8 am PST sharp through booking agent ReserveAmerica.com or via 800.444.7275 and callers can book up to seven months in advance. “Usually the individual cottages are gone within 10 minutes,” says Davick, who recommends visiting the ReserveAmerica.com website to pre-register prior to morning of the sale. Additionally, at anytime one may view the ReserveAmerica.com site for cancellations that have been converted to availabilities & posted as an ‘A’
“It's a unique facility within the state park system. When you get a reservation at Crystal Cove, you really need to consider yourself a lottery winner, because they're in such demand and there's really quite a small inventory.”
Although there is no minimum stay, a seven-night per rolling calendar year maximum has been imposed to ensure that everyone gets a shot to get lulled to sleep by the nearby crashing waves. (For instance, if you book a week in September, you won't be able to reserve again until the following September).
If you are one of the lucky few able to land a reservation, you'll no doubt be charmed by the quaint cottages which, in addition to receiving updated electrical, plumbing and safety features, have been painstakingly restored to their heyday period with vintage furniture. (Bring your guitar, favorite book or board games, as there are no televisions or telephones).
If you're unable to secure a much-coveted reservation, you can still stroll on the beach, visit The Interpretive Store (which sells original plein air artwork, jewelry, books, photographs and educational toys), and even dine right on the sand at the Beachcomber Café—a portion of whose proceeds get channeled into CCA's continued restoration efforts.
Free tours of the historical district and cottages are offered 10 a.m.–12 p.m. on the second Saturday of every month (except December or in case of rain)—many times by Davick herself.
