Malibu may have America’s most coveted trailer park

Malibu, California, on the Pacific Ocean.
Malibu, California, on the Pacific Ocean.

Paradise Cove, tucked into an oceanfront location in Malibu, California, could be the most coveted trailer park in the country.

The Cove initially was developed in the 1950s when fisherman started parking campers and trailers near the water. In the 1970s, the owners expanded the Cove’s mobile-home capacity to 265 trailers.

David Carter and his wife bought one of the larger ones for about $70,000 in 1979. Now he’s a busy property broker, and homes at the Cove sell for prices in the millions of dollars.

The massive appreciation has done little to change Paradise Cove since Carter moved there. It is still a laid-back beach community within walking distance of the Pacific Ocean.

Most of the mobile homes at the Cove are 1970s-vintage structures measuring 400 to 1,000 square feet.

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But that hasn’t kept a new crowd of wealthy Californians including entrepreneurs, financiers, film makers and actors from buying a little piece of Paradise Cove for themselves.

Artist Grant Shumate, a resident of Venice who bought a home at the Cove for weekend getaways with his girlfriend, told the New York Times, “We’re just happier with less.”

That sentiment echoed the feelings of other homeowners at 85-acre Paradise Cove, which is flanked by mansions whose owners share beach access with the Cove crowd.

“We have the same view of the beach as our neighbors who paid $65 million for their homes,” Shumate told the Times. [New York Times] — Mike Seemuth