Bruce's Beach returning to rightful Black heirs
Los Angeles County officials have detailed how they would complete the unprecedented transfer of Bruce's Beach to the descendants of a Black couple who were run out of Manhattan Beach almost a century ago.
The beachfront property, estimated to be worth $20 million after a complicated appraisal, would be transferred to the Bruce family following an escrow process, according to the proposed plan. The county would then rent the property from the Bruces for $413,000 per year and maintain a county lifeguard facility at the site.
“This land should have never been taken from the Bruce family over 90 years ago. Now, we are on the precipice of redemption and justice that is long overdue,” said Holly Mitchell, chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. “Although we cannot change the past, we have a responsibility to learn from it and to do what is right today. … I look forward to standing with my colleagues on the right side of history.”
County staff and a legal team representing the Bruce family pro bono have spent months hammering out the details. They've received support from state lawmakers and reparations advocates — as well as from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who authorized the transfer last September and codified into law that the property had been wrongfully taken.
State and city leaders across the nation have looked on to see exactly how the historic transfer would be made. Many say Bruce's Beach could forge a path for those seeking to reckon with past injustices that dispossessed Indigenous people and blocked Black people, Latinos, Japanese Americans and others from owning property and building wealth in this country.
“This has not been an easy process … there was no precedent for this,” said L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn, who said a team of lawyers could find no comparable case study. “We wanted this to be foolproof. We wanted to transfer the property to the Bruce family in the safest way possible so that they would not inherit legal challenges or any kind of burden.”
The proposed agreement will be brought before the L.A. County Board of Supervisors for a vote. If approved, the transfer would realize a call to action that began more than two years ago — when the grassroots movement Justice for Bruce's Beach sparked a national conversation and forced a reckoning in Manhattan Beach.
The story of Bruce's Beach starts with the Tongva people, who tended the stretch of coast before real estate developers staked their claim in the early 1900s and built what is known today as Manhattan Beach.
By 1912, Charles and Willa Bruce had made their way to California. Willa paid $1,225 for the first of two lots along the Strand between 26th and 27th streets and ran a popular lodge, cafe and dance hall that extended a rare welcome to Black families seeking a weekend by the sea.
Many called the area Bruce's Beach. A few more Black families, drawn to this new community, bought and built their own cottages next door.
But the Bruces and their guests faced increasing threats from white neighbors. The Ku Klux Klan and local real estate agents purportedly plotted ways to harass them.
When racism failed to drive this Black beach community out of town, city officials in 1924 condemned the neighborhood and seized more than two dozen properties through eminent domain. The reason, they said, was an urgent need for a public park.
But for decades, the properties sat empty. The two oceanfront parcels that had been owned by the Bruces were transferred to the state in 1948, then to the county in 1995. As for the other lots, city officials eventually turned them into a park overlooking the ocean.
When Hahn realized that the county now owned the two parcels where the Bruce resort once stood, she jumped into action. She called the great-greatgrandson of Charles and Willa Bruce, Anthony Bruce, who had been thrust into the spotlight in 2020 after the history of Bruce's Beach became a national story.