Hermosa Beach Surf Legends

Gateway Fountain Fundraising Event
— We hope you didn't miss this on June 29th, it was great!

 

Help Build the Most Exciting Public Art Piece in Southern California!

by Phil Roberts - PhilRoberts.com

Leadership Hermosa Beach
Web Site

City of Hermosa Beach Web Site

(Click to enlarge picture)
The Eliminators Web Site

Eddie Bertrand Web Site

Thin Ice Web Site

Leadership Hermosa Beach, Class of 2008, and the City of Hermosa Beach, invite a major event today to raise money to help fund the unique and beautiful Hermosa Beach Surf Legends Memorial Gateway Fountain. Join us at the beach for a fun and entertainment-filled Sunday afternoon and help honor the outstanding contribution to the sport of surfing and industry supporting it by the legendary innovators and entrepreneurs, right here in Hermosa Beach! (Flyer>>)

What: Hermosa Beach Surf Legends Gateway Fountain Fundraiser Event When: Sunday, June 29, 2008, 2pm to 7pm Where:
Sangria Restaurant
68 Pier Avenue
Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
(310) 376-4412
Map>> Music: "The Eliminators"
(Click above to go to MySpace page)
—> featuring "Eddie Bertrand"
(Click above to go to Web site)
"Thin Ice"
(Click above to go to MySpace page) Tickets: $45 at the door

Fundraiser Auction Items and Donations

Very special thanks to the 76 businesses and individuals listed below who have generously donated auction items or cash to help make this an event not to be missed! A detailed list of auction items is available on the next page...

Click Here for Auction Item Detail Page
...or,
Download the PDF version
HBSL_Donation_Details_062608.pdf

A great way to say "Thank you" to these generous donors is by purchsing their goods and services!

 

 

 

 

 

Surf Photographer LeRoy Grannis Named Grand Master of Hermosa Beach Art Walk 2007 "Salute to 100 Summers"

August 18 Art Walk Preceded by Special July 21 Gallery Showing Of Grannis' Work

Hermosa Beach native and internationally renowned surf photographer LeRoy Grannis has been named as "Grand Master" of the 2007 Hermosa Beach Art Walk, it was announced today by Ken Klade, Founder of Hermosa Beach Art Walk.

"The theme of this, our centennial year event, is 'Salute to 100 Summers,'" Klade said in making the announcement. "I can think of no finer chronologist of beach culture and summer in Southern California -- and no local artist more deserving of special recognition -- than photographer LeRoy Grannis. His body of work not only defines the icons of surfing and the emerging beach culture of to 60s, 70s and beyond, they continue to inspire and delight people around the world. We are proud to honor him in this way."

LeRoy Grannis was born in Hermosa Beach on August 12, 1917 in a home half a block from the Strand on 10th Street. He began playing in the waves with his father by the time he was six and got his first surfboard by the time he hit his teens. In 1960, he began shooting surf culture images at 22nd Street in Hermosa Beach at the suggestion of a family doctor, as a stress-relieving hobby. His work soon began appearing in a handful of emerging surf magazines that were launched in the 1960s, including Surfer, Reef and Surfing Illustrated, a magazine he helped create. "Photo: Grannis" quickly became the signature of many of the finest, defining images of the sport and its lifestyle. Grannis has been inducted in the Surfing Hall of Fame and is a recipient of the surf industry's Lifetime Achievement Award. His work continues to be shown in major galleries from New York to Beverly Hills. In 2003, he was inducted into Hermosa Beach's Surfers Walk of Fame.

PLEASE NOTE: Many of his classic images will be on display at a special exhibit and fundraising event at Gallery C, 1225 Hermosa Avenue, on Saturday, July 21 (7:00-10:00 P.M.). Admission is $25 and the public is welcome. For more information log on to www.hbartwalk.com or call (310) 374-0080. Event sponsors include the Beach House, Sangrias, Sharkeez, and Cantina Real.

Grannis' art will also be on display at Art Walk on Saturday, August 18 (10 a.m.-6 p.m.), a week after his 90th birthday.

Now in its third year, Hermosa Beach Art Walk is a local nonprofit organization and visual art exhibition designed to promote arts education and appreciation. Featuring the work of more than 50 top local artists and musical performers - stationed in select locations along the sidewalk on upper Pier Avenue in downtown Hermosa Beach - the event is a lively and colorful festival celebrating the arts. Local galleries, restaurants and businesses participate in the Art Walk by hosting art exhibits, food specials and wine receptions.

Hermosa Beach Surf Legends Memorial Fountain

Help us erect a fountain commemorating Hermosa's great surfing heritage. The City is raising funds to construct a surf motif fountain on the lawn in front of the historic Hermosa Beach Auditorium at PCH and Pier. The fountain will be a full-size bronze replica of the famous photo of Dewey Weber surfing 22nd Street in Hermosa Beach taken by legendary surf photographer and local Hermosan, Leroy Grannis, in 1966. Water jets will simulate the spray from Dewey's trademark "Wheelhouse" cutback. Around the base of the fountain will be photo-etched granite tiles depicting the legendary surfers/watermen who emerged from the Hermosa area, including such greats as Doc Ball, Hoppy Swarts, Leroy Grannis, Jim Bailey, the Kerwins, Bev Morgan, Paul Matthies, Bing Copeland, Hap Jacobs, Dale Velzy, Greg Noll, Mike Purpus, Rick Stoner, Dewey Weber, Eddie Talbot, Phil Becker, the Meistrell Brothers, Dru Harrison, Sonny Vardeman, Donald Takayama, Linda Benson, John Baker, Mike Stevenson, Alf Laws and others. Along with the photos, we hope to preserve for posterity some of the old stories from this classic time period in Hermosan history.

The fountain will provide a lasting remembrance of a time when Hermosa Beach was at the epicenter of the burgeoning new sport of surfing. The ancient Hawaiian sport of surfing was introduced to the "Mainland" when George Freeth and Duke Kahanamoku came to the South Bay in the early 1900's. During the 60's & 70's, the surf shops were lined up along PCH and these legendary forerunners of modern day surfing were developing their skills in the local surf and creating new board designs in their shaping rooms. Hermosa Beach was where it was all happening!

The fountain design incorporates the underwater kelp and sea-life that thrived before the harbors were dredged and jetties constructed, forever altering the south bay shoreline. This was a hard-learned lesson about how delicate our natural environment is, and must not be forgotten!

The walk area around the fountain will be paved with personally engraved bricks placed in a woven mat pattern representing the interconnectedness of the beach community. This project will be funded through donations for the bricks (at $200 each) plus grant funds, as a grassroots effort to help keep alive the surfing soul of the great City of Hermosa Beach. You will also receive a black and white photograph of Dewey personally signed by Leroy Grannis with each brick purchase. Make your tax-deductible donation check out to the City of Hermosa Beach (Surf Memorial Fund). Any donation amount is appreciated. Special recognition will be given to large donors.

DEWEY WEBER BIO by Steve Pezman (Publisher of The Surfer's Journal — http://www.SurfersJournal.com/)
Nick-named the "Little man on Wheels", Dewey Weber stood only 5'-6" tall, but was a giant of a surf figure. The original prototype beach gremmie (period surf vernacular contracted from the term gremlin), Dewey was topped by a shaggy, sun bleached, white-blond mop, characteristically wore way too big, low slung, fire engine red baggies to go with his dark tan, and pulled off impossibly quick, acute slices and carves followed by rapid stepping nose rides, performed on ultra wide, thin slabs of balsa and later foam, featuring huge "hatchet" fins in the extreme aft to keep the board stuck to the wave while Dewey was perched on the tip. Reynolds Yater explains that Dewey's unique surfing was the product of the waves he grew up riding: short, round, open and close beach breaks. In-and-out waves. Crank-a-turn and run-to-the-tip waves. If Mickey Dora was the swank and cynical prince of Malibu's long point surf, and Phil Edwards was the smooth, powerful Numero Uno in the waters down south, then Dewey was King of Radical in the South Bay. He'd always been something. As a kid growing up, Dewey was a Duncan yo-yo champion, "lived in a shoe with his dog Tige" in TV commercials for Buster Brown Shoe's, and was an all CIF wrestler in high school (once reportedly keeping 6', 250 pound Greg Noll in a headlock from Dana Point to Newport Beach because he was afraid to let him go.) Renown as one of the best surfers in the world from the late 50s through early-60s, star of Bruce Brown's first cult-film epic, "Barefoot Adventure" in 1961, Dewey built a surfboard empire in the 60s, headquartered on surfboard row, (read PCH/Hermosa Beach), based on producing outlandishly designed and decorated boards that were as radical as his surf style. During a period of fierce competition between surfboard manufacturers, he aced his rivals by introducing the sport's first Competition Team in a famous ad in Surfer magazine that showed his team riders arranged in a V for victory on the side of a sand dune. They quickly followed suit. Perhaps more than any other single surfer, the flamboyant Weber became an icon for the surfing explosion that saw the sport grow from a few eccentric thousands in the 50s to millions of hyper-stoked teenaged grems in the 60s. As that moment faded and the times blew by, Dewey fished commercially and struggled to keep his famous name relevant to a fast evolving surf scene. Although known for being an absolute scoundrel at times, when the tide was up, Dewey was a generous and giving friend and loving family man. Dewey drank hard and lived harder. In the end, his radical nature took him down early. At his funeral overlooking the South Bay beaches, as his ashes were put into the sea in front of a gathering of surf scene notables from all over the world, a flock of dolphins came frolicking into the surf line. Everyone there figured they were sent as an honor guard for one of surfing's most beloved and colorful characters.

Please help fund the Hermosa Beach Surf Legends Memorial Fountain!
Call City Public Works at (310) 318-0222 for additional information.

City of Hermosa Beach, California USA
1315 Valley Drive, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254

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