The King and Queen of Malibu: The True Story of the Battle for Paradise

The King and Queen of Malibu: The True Story of the Battle for Paradise

by David K. Randall
The King and Queen of Malibu: The True Story of the Battle for Paradise

The King and Queen of Malibu: The True Story of the Battle for Paradise

by David K. Randall

Paperback(Reprint)

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Overview

"A true story of the battle for paradise…men and women fighting for a slice of earth like no other." —New York Times Book Review

Frederick and May Rindge, the unlikely couple whose love story propelled Malibu’s transformation from an untamed ranch in the middle of nowhere to a paradise seeded with movie stars, are at the heart of this story of American grit and determinism. He was a Harvard-trained confidant of presidents; she was a poor Midwestern farmer’s daughter raised to be suspicious of the seasons. Yet the bond between them would shape history.

The newly married couple reached Los Angeles in 1887 when it was still a frontier, and within a few years Frederick, the only heir to an immense Boston fortune, became one of the wealthiest men in the state. After his sudden death in 1905, May spent the next thirty years fighting off some of the most powerful men in the country—as well as fissures within her own family—to preserve Malibu as her private kingdom. Her struggle, one of the longest over land in California history, would culminate in a landmark Supreme Court decision and lead to the creation of the Pacific Coast Highway.

The King and Queen of Malibu traces the path of one family as the country around them swept off the last vestiges of the Civil War and moved into what we would recognize as the modern age. The story of Malibu ranges from the halls of Harvard to the Old West in New Mexico to the beginnings of San Francisco’s counter culture amid the Gilded Age, and culminates in the glamour of early Hollywood—all during the brief sliver of history in which the advent of railroads and the automobile traversed a beckoning American frontier and anything seemed possible.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780393353945
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 03/14/2017
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 272
Sales rank: 365,300
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

David K. Randall is the New York Times best-selling author of four books, including Dreamland and Black Death at the Golden Gate. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. A senior reporter at Reuters, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Beach 9

1 A Great Beast Awakening 17

2 Oh, the Happy Vaquero! 31

3 The Prophet of Preston 43

4 The Boomiest Boom 56

5 What Shall We Do With the Millionaires? 68

6 Happy Days in Southern California 80

7 Filling the Mountains With Men 92

8 California Shall Be Ours as Long As The Stars Remain 107

9 The Fire 122

10 One Last Adventure 131

11 Arch Rock 141

12 To Force Her Gates Open 152

13 Open Roads 164

14 The Definition of Freedom 173

15 Between the Mountains and the Sea 188

16 The Public Good 195

17 The Mansion on the Hill 206

Epilogue: Tracks in the Sand 222

Acknowledgments 235

Selected Bibliography and Sources 237

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