Crystal Cove State Park — THE hottest tickets on sale the last week of April were not for Bruce Springsteen at the Greek or Madonna's extra show at the Forum. They were for the beach cottages at Orange County's Crystal Cove State Park.
Up and online at the very hour reservations opened, I clicked and clicked until I got a cabin. Well, a room. With bunk beds. Facing Pacific Coast Highway, not the ocean. Still, I felt lucky. About 16,000 users were trying to secure one of the 13 cottages that morning, according to ReserveAmerica, the park's booking service.
There clearly was pent-up demand for the limited supply. This stretch between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach became state parkland in 1979, but private lessees held the cottages until 2001. Five years of restoration or reconstruction of the 1930s-era bungalows followed to ready them as rentals.
The funky village clings to the top of the bluff and climbs up from the sand, not quite meeting in the middle. The wood cottages -- some clad in bare cedar shingles, others with new or faded paint -- sweep around with the curve of the cove, a tiny neighborhood that is half-gentrified. To approach it walking up or down the coast is to stumble head-on into a 70-year time warp, into what the National Register of Historic Places recognized as "the last intact California beach vernacular architecture."
The historic charm and unspoiled coastline come at an irresistible price: from $165 a night for four people. Lodge rooms like mine, which share common living spaces, cost as little as $60 for two people.
I had never been to Crystal Cove before checking in on the Fourth of July, about a week after the cottages opened. It has changed my idea of Southern California beaches. This is not the wide, groomed strands of Venice or Redondo or Balboa Island. The cove is intimate, tucked below a 40-foot bluff, invisible from the nearby highway. The golden sand slopes slowly into the Pacific. I found mussel shells the size of hand trowels. The water is so clear that one morning, I watched an orange garibaldi dart around offshore, the front of each wave like a pane of glass.
I'm no beach expert. I arrived somewhat under-prepared for the surfside lifestyle, with no folding chair or umbrella. (These were supposed to be available for a fee but weren't yet.) Even with a hat, snacks, a super-size bottle of sunscreen and a spy novel, I did occasionally have to leave the beach.
