Written by Dennis Piotrowski & Monique Sugimoto | Published January 31, 2013 in the PV News | 2026 | May Issue
Anyone who has walked the bluffs of Lunada Bay has met Gunther, the laid-back tiger-striped tabby who spends his days laying in the sun, chasing ground squirrels, and watching surfers scramble up and down the narrow paths to the shore below. Visited by flocks of pelicans expertly gliding by, residents walking their dogs, and seals sunning themselves on the rocks, Gunther’s world is a quiet one.
“Things would have been different had any of the plans for Lunada Bay proposed over the years ever been realized.”
An Ambitious Waterfront Proposal
The first plan was laid out in 1927 by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., famed landscape architect of the Palos Verdes Project. Olmsted’s “pleasure basin” would have created an area for “bathing, boating and waterside amusements.”
Olmsted’s plan included a breakwater extending from Resort Point across part of the bay. A breakwater from this end would be more pleasing to the landscape, provide shelter for boats, and allow bathers to take advantage of the sea breezes, rocky shores, and heavy surf in the neighboring cove…