Malibu’s tight-knit, eclectic community of surfers and creative misfits. Here, designer Rene Acuna and agent Sofie Howard take us into their magical world.
In Malibu, California, there’s a particularly beloved, protected stretch of beach to which surfers flock. Regularly featured in blockbuster films, it’s where Britney Spears shot her Sometimes video on the pier, resplendent in a blinding white crop top. And on a bluff just above the ocean, bordering mansions owned by tech billionaires and celebrities like Barbra Streisand, you’ll also find something totally unexpected in this most gilded part of LA County: a trailer park.
Behold the Paradise Cove Mobile Home Park, a tight-knit community of 276 trailers and mobile homes that both lifeguards and rock stars call home. It’s here, in a vibrant double-wide previously owned by Pamela Anderson, that longtime resident and third-generation Californian Sofie Howard and her husband, wardrobe stylist and designer Rene Acuña, have set up shop. “People have this TV version of Malibu in their head, which is, like, rich people who aren’t nice,” says Howard. “But once you come into the Cove, you see all walks of life.”
Howard, a photo producer and agent who now exclusively represents the legendary photographers Larry Clark and Ed and Deanna Templeton, spent 17 years in Paradise Cove before meeting Acuña. She owned a weekend trailer in a section of the park dating back to the 1950s nicknamed Down Below, where single surfers congregated. But after marrying, the couple (who had a real meet-cute at a party after unknowingly living down the street from each other in Venice for years) could afford to move Up Top, with better views and more spacious homes. “It’s very much like Movin’ On Up, the song from The Jeffersons,” Howard says with a laugh.
She’s eager to point out how different Paradise Cove is from other tony neighborhoods by the ocean, with neighbors who actually look out for each other. Paul McCartney may own property onsite, but so do landscape designers and schoolteachers (at least for now – prices are going up). “No one’s behind gates,” Howard points out. “You have trailers in here that cost $7 million, but no one’s able to hide. There’s literally no privacy here. And while that might sound like a horrible thing to some people, it’s actually amazing because our community is so strong and so deep.” Living through wildfires leads to intense bonds, and the residents of the Cove are friendly and like to have fun. Even someone as famous as Macca will throw visitors a wave.
“I broke my nose surfing and knocked my front two teeth out, and within five minutes everybody was around me,” she says. “Every single person came by to make sure I was okay. I’ve lived in Venice and Santa Monica my entire life, and I’ve never had one person help me with anything.”
Howard had long admired Anderson’s trailer. It had a hot tub to thaw out in after a freezing session in the Pacific, extensive surfboard storage, more space for her and Acuña’s three adult sons, and the holy grail of LA real estate: parking spaces. But Howard and Acuña, lovers of the vintage and kaleidoscopic, rejected what Howard calls the “white denim, white rug” Malibu paradigm. Working with designer Frances Merrill of Reath Design, they set out to create a “big surf cabin” that better reflected their taste. They repainted white floors a glossy green, turned the kitchen mauve, and draped the bedrooms in deadstock wallpaper. The walls throughout feature colorful art (Acuña’s favorite is a print of a giant orange) and prints from Howard’s former career as an art director for Geffen Records (she owns portraits of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love shot by Anton Corbijn, Mark Seliger, and Michael Lavine, all gifts from the photographers, with her own wedding photo tucked among them).
The vibe is comfortable and unpretentious. Howard’s cherished leather club chairs, bought 20 years ago from a Paris flea market, remain tattered. “I don’t want to fix them, because I like that,” she says. The only item she is precious about is the custom, multi-colored couch she and Merrill spent months designing. “We have a joke because we have a lot of kids and people come in, and I’m like, ‘Whoever has a wet bathing suit on this couch, I will literally slap you. You can sit on this naked, or wearing whatever you want, but no wet bathing suits.’”
Howard and Acuña spend a lot of time in said wet bathing suits, and Acuña used to design board shorts for Billabong and Quicksilver. Starting a brand together was a no-brainer. “I’ve always been a person who wears 90 per cent vintage clothes,” says Howard. “So I’m in like a ’50s ball gown or some crazy shit. But the first day I met Rene, he was wearing pink polka dot socks with a bright orange T-shirt and a green hat. He just looks bananas all the time.” Their company, 1Twenty9, named after their Paradise Cove address, produces ultra-limited, sustainable runs of just 15 to 20 pairs of surf shorts per pattern, made from deadstock fabrics they source both locally and globally. “Everything we make has bright, crazy colors,” Howard notes. “And funnily enough, people in the industry have said to us, ‘you have to make a black pair or a gray pair or a navy pair.’ And we’re like, ‘That’s a negative.’”
The couple refuses to be boring, which extends to their hosting prowess. “Rene’s legit like the mayor of this place,” Howard says proudly. “One day in the summer, he will get an entire keg of beer, dig a hole on the beach, fill it with ice and put the keg in there just for the fuck of it.”
“Every single person that comes here just can’t get over it because we’re all out in front of our homes barbecuing, using pizza ovens, margarita machines,” she says. “My neighbors are everybody from Minnie Driver to [Beastie Boy] Mike D. But you see all these famous people and everybody’s in their bathing suits like, ‘What’s up?’ It’s pretty special.”
Taken from 10 Men USA Issue 2 – HERITAGE, LEGACY, FUTURE – out Now! Order your copy here.
Photographer RYAN YOUNG
Text JOCELYN SILVER
