Shirley, Christine F.

Historical Background

Biography

Christine F. Shirley was a resident of Crystal Cove, California from 1967 until 2001 and a long-time activist for preserving its 46 rustic cottages and the surrounding natural environment. Shirley first began to visit Crystal Cove in the 1930s with her cousin and fellow Cove resident Ruthie Van Wyck. She purchased the lease to cottage 23 in 1967 and spent most weekends thereafter at Crystal Cove with her children. At the time, she lived with her family in the Hollywood Hills and taught at Los Angeles High School. She married Jack Shirley in 1970 after they met at Crystal Cove.

Shirley was a member of the Executive Council of the Crystal Cove Residents' Association. Worried that the Irvine Company would sell Crystal Cove to a developer who would destroy the cottages and natural ecology of the surrounding area, Shirley worked with fellow resident Martha Padve to add Crystal Cove to the National Register of Historic Places. Shirley was deeply interested in Crystal Cove's history and gathered much information about it for an unrealized book.

Crystal Cove lies on the Pacific Coast between the Southern California cities of Newport Beach and Laguna Beach. The area was purchased by James Irvine in 1864 and retained by the Irvine Company until 1979. Early in the twentieth century, squatters began to live in the area, first erecting tents, then one-room cottages. More rooms were added to these structures as needed over time, often assembled from driftwood gathered along the beach. The cottages are one of the only remaining examples of California vernacular beach architecture, otherwise known as architecture without architects.

Beginning in the 1920s, silent film productions used Crystal Cove as a set for movies set in the South Seas because all of the cottages had palm-thatched roofs during this era. Such movies included Treasure Island (1920), Storm Tossed (1921), Sadie Thompson (1928), Half a Bride (1928), White Shadows in the South Seas (1928), and, much later, Beaches (1988). Road traffic increased with the construction of Pacific Coast Highway in 1926, and Crystal Cove became easily accessible to the public. In the late 1930s the Irvine Company informed cottage owners that they must either move their cottages or agree to lease the property from the company. Many owners chose to remain.

After the Irvine Company sold Crystal Cove to the State of California in 1979, Shirley remained involved in the Crystal Cove Residents' Association as it filed lawsuits against the State to allow residents to remain in the cottages. The association won several lease extensions for its residents until 2001, when all residents were evicted.

The last of the cottages was built in the late 1940s. The exteriors of the structures have remained nearly unchanged since the 1950s, although many interiors have been remodeled. Between 2001 and 2006, the State of California restored 22 of the 46 cottages to their vintage 1935-1955 interior and exterior condition.