Huntington Beach city officials exploring surf museum move to library

By Laylan Connelly

Officials are exploring an idea to move the iconic Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum from its current location to the city’s Main Street branch library.

The potential relocation was discussed at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, where council members voted unanimously to direct staff to explore the feasibility of the move, with a report expected within 90 days.

The museum has been at its current location on Olive Avenue since the late 1980s and has outgrown the facility, city officials said.

The limited size of the existing location has prevented the museum from displaying many of its larger and more significant surfboards, some dating back to the 1930s, as well as other archival materials, city staff told the council in a report.

A collection of historic documents, publications and surf culture artifacts are currently not accessible to the public due to a lack of storage, cataloging capacity, and archival infrastructure, staffers said.

The museum’s executive director, Peter “PT” Townend, said the idea for a move came up about 18 months ago, with the hopes that Huntington Beach would be the site of the LA28 Olympics surfing venue.

Even though Lower Trestles, just south of San Clemente, was selected instead, the idea for a bigger museum space stuck, needed as a draw for the millions of visitors expected with the Olympics and the World Cup coming to the Los Angeles and Orange County area in coming years, Townend said.

“We’ve been doing world-class exhibits in a box, and we need to be bigger and better,” he added.

Locating the museum in vacant areas of the library could also open the door to future collaboration with the Huntington Beach Art Center, helping to establish “a cohesive cultural district along Main Street that highlights the city’s history and identity as an international surf destination,” city officials said.

Visit Huntington Beach has indicated preliminary support and may assist in underwriting relocation and ongoing operational costs, pending further discussion, staffers told the council.

But first, a full review of the site’s compatibility, operational impacts and required land use entitlements — including permitting requirements — is necessary.

About half of the library space isn’t being used, and moving the museum to the upper end of Main Street could help drive more tourism to that area, Townend said.

The museum was founded by Natalie Kotsch, a Canadian who moved to Huntington Beach and fell in love with surf culture.

Kotsch, who died in 2014, dreamed of a place where people could see memorabilia and art, learn about surfing greats, and gather with others from around the world to celebrate the culture.

Through the years, there have been talks about moving the museum or finding a bigger, more prominent location. In 2002, there were high hopes to raise $6 million to move the museum to a 20,000-square-foot building along Pacific Coast Highway, but those plans never came to fruition.

There were also talks a few years ago about joining forces with the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center in San Clemente, but many Huntington Beach surfers pushed back on that idea, and eventually it wiped out.

A larger space is needed, Townend said. High ceilings would allow relics such as the museum’s 16-foot wooden boards to be displayed upright, and a library area could be a study spot where surf magazines, books and other cultural, environmental and historic information could be accessed by students and the public.

“I just think it will give us a much better opportunity for the exhibits,” Townend said.

An area currently used for reading programs during the day could be turned into a special events space, fitting about 100 people.

If approved, there’s a plan to take the big, world-record-setting surfboard at the museum back to the waves to set a new record on next year’s California Surfing Day, before the board is relocated, Townend said. The current record is 66 people.

City officials seemed to be on board with the relocation idea.

“There’s some amazing artifacts and historical pieces in the Main Street library, I think it makes sense to fuse that together, to give the International Surfing Museum a home it really deserves, put it on the map,” Councilmember Casey McKeon said. “We need a high-profile location to give it the credit due.

“Obviously, there’s a lot of work to be done,” he said, “but if done right it could be a good fusion of the library with the International Surfing Museum.”

Councilmember Don Kennedy remembers going into the now-museum building back when it was a dentist’s office in the ’70s.

“That surf museum does need a better location,” he said. “The synergy between the surf museum, library and Main Street, it just all fits.”

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