About Laguna, CA

Local Indian tribes flourished on the freshwater canyon lakes and the rich coastal lands that made up the region that they named Lagonas, which translated into lake.

Visitors were taking their yearly pilgrimage through the canyons on makeshift trails in order to camp at Laguna Beach every summer by the late 1800’s. In 1903, painter Norman St. Clair arrived from San Francisco, Laguna had already had become a very popular tourist destination with a hotel, known as the Hotel Laguna.

Mr. St. Clair returned to his home with landscape painting and glowing reports that attracted is friends to follow him south, much the same as tourists of any period. Soon, Plein Air artists such as William Wendt and California marine artist Frank Cuprien relocated to Laguna Beach.

Laguna Beach had a permanent population of around 300 residents within a few years. At least half of the population were artists. Artist Edgar Payne established an art gallery, in 1918, that later came to be known as Laguna Art Museum, which as one of the first art museums in California.

In 1918, the White House Restaurant opened and in the 1920’s, the Laguna Playhouse was completed and opened. Close to the downtown area, there were numerous summer cottages.

The early years of the Great Depression didn’t help the art community, and the Festival of Arts staged its first show close to Hotel Laguna, in 1932, in an effort to attract some additional business to the community following the Olympic games in Los Angeles. Vaudevillian Lolita Perine added living pictures to the festival, which launched the tradition of the Pageant of the Masters.

Laguna Beach had already attracted the attention of the moviemakers in Hollywood. Hollywood stars that included Mary Pickford, Rudolf Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, and Bette Davis maintained homes in the community. Sometime later, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson joined them.

The servicemen that were stationed in the region got to know the coast of Orange County, during WW II, and, later on, many of them came back to live.

In 1948, the Surf and sand restaurant opened. The restaurant soon became popular with a long list of notable personalities, which included Billy Graham, Joe Namath, as well as Peter Ustinov.

The Main Beach boardwalk had become an open public beach park, by the 1960’s. The 1960’s also brought other changes. A group of artists who believed that the Festival of Arts was very restrictive in accepting exhibitors started the Sawdust Festival, and the following year the Art-A-Fair opened to focus on new mediums and traditional arts.

The hippie culture was also experienced in Laguna as an art colony in the 1960’s. However, that was replaced with new people who put Laguna Beach on the map, who were known as the White House Press Corps.

When President Nixon visited his San Clemente home, the press corps began living at the Surf and Sand Hotel. Fledgling reporters such as Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer, and Tom Brokaw were often guests. From the beach in front of their hotel, newscasters would do their reports.

During the 1980’s, as Orange County was continually developing environmentalists established a Greenbelt of preserved property all around Laguna Beach. They bought some property, and other land was donated to them, from the Irvine Company.

These days, Laguna Beach is a full-fledged resort community. Its newest addition is the Montage Laguna Beach, which attracts its own Hollywood actors such as the sometime-resident named Heather Locklear.

Both visitors and locals alike can stroll in the new public park that was developed next to the Montage, enjoy the sunsets over the Pacific Ocean, and explore tide pools much the same as the early artists, Spaniards, and the Indians did, who understood the charm of Laguna in times gone by.