Escape To Laguna Beach

In 1542, a mere 50 years after Christopher Columbus first touched down in North American, Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo came into contact with the original locals at the island of Santa Catalina (he didn’t actually set foot on the now-popular tourist destination). Situated 30 miles off the coast of Laguna Beach, the following day the Spaniards arrived at Baya de los Fumos (dubbed the “Bay of Smokes” because of all the smoke from the various cooking fires in the area, it is now called San Pedro Bay).

By the 1770s, Spanish missionaries and settlers began to arrive en masse. In 1776, the nearby San Juan Capistrano mission was established by Father Junipero Serra. Originally named Lagona – a derivative of the Spanish word for “lagoon” – because of the area’s multitude of coves and lagoons, the small outpost was ceded to Mexico as part of the Mexican land grant in 1837. The city was officially founded in 1887 as Lagonas and later renamed Laguna Beach in 1904.

It’s about this time when an English artist named Norman St. Clair landed in Laguna. It’s believed he arrived sometime between 1899 and 1902. Soon joined by renowned landscape artist Granville Redmond, followed by more painters, Laguna quickly became an epicenter for the California Impressionist movement.

Establishing its place as a bonafide destination for artists, the first Festival of Arts took place in Laguna Beach in 1932, the same year the Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles. One of the oldest arts festival in the U.S. today, for over 90 years now, from early July through the end of August, the Festival of Arts has showcased the works of iconic artists, as well as hosted art demonstrations, live music performances and meet-and-greets with the artists.

An off-the-beaten path beach town halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego, early on the town adopted bohemian sensibilities and an acceptance (or at least tolerance) for eccentricity. At no point was this more obvious than during the heady 1960s. The two big cultural drivers during the Age of Aquarius were the Sawdust Festival, which kicked off in 1965. A youthful movement seeking freedom of expression, it was as much of an art show as it was a gathering of an artistic tribe.

“The Sawdust was a child of the times,” says Mike Heintz, a Laguna-based silversmith. “It was much more than a place for artists to show and sell their artwork. It was happening; a beautiful, colorful collage of people creating a unique environment where nothing of its kind had existed.”

Around this same time the Mystic Arts World opened in Laguna and ostensibly becomes ground zero for Southern California psychedelia. A group of surfers, smugglers, hippies and cosmic warriors known as the Brotherhood of Eternal Love settle into the canyons of Laguna, using the Mystic Arts World as a front for distributing some of the most potent LSD of the era, known as Orange Sunshine.

Attracting the attention of Harvard professor Dr. Timothy Leary, the goal of the Brotherhood was to turn everyone on and expand the collective consciousness of the world. Eventually Leary was arrested, safe houses were raided, and a lot of folks went on the lam. While the glory days of the Brotherhood were over by the early '70s, the cosmic spirit of adventure they left in their wake reverberates today. 

This early amalgamation of Indigenous roots, infused with a Spanish and Mexican pioneering spirit and a dose of pastoral English sensibilities, have blended to become something uniquely and quintessentially Laguna. There’s simply no other place like it. From the grounds of the Montage, to the shops and businesses on P.C.H., to the beaches and surf, it’s the kind of place you can escape from it all and stay right where you are at the same time.