Top 5 Most Expensive Zip Codes, #5
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#5 Malibu, CA 90265
Median Sales Price $2,332,500.00
“Malibu, 27 Miles of Scenic Beauty is what the road sign announces as you enter the city on Coast Highway. No wonder so many people love this Los Angeles County California city framed by the Pacific Ocean and Santa Monica Mountains. Above are Malibu Pier and Malibu beaches, include Paradise Cove.
Look up to houses perched on hillsides. Look down to houses on the sand below. Coastal Highway 1 in Malibu sends you through the middle ground between blues sky and mountains, blue ocean and waves. It is exhilarating, gorgeous and the words on a road sign are accurate: “Malibu, 27 Miles of Scenic Beauty”.Malibu is primarily a residential and recreation area. With very few hotels, it is not especially known for its hospitality industry, though it hosts millions of visitors annually to its beaches and piers. One public pier, an historic Malibu pier with unique dual (domed) buildings, and Paradise Pier, on the private restaurant /beach at Paradise Cove, where the public can park at and dine, offer vacationers unique experiences not soon forgotten.
Old-timers who watched the surfing genre movies and beach-blanket style flicks may think of Malibu when they visit. Or you may think of countless current productions that use the popular beaches for their location shoots. Filming is second nature, like water and sand, to this community. Home to countless celebrities, Malibu hillside homes offer stunning views that on clear days, serve up the sweet smell of the surrounding forests and mountains combined with sea salt scents of the ocean. The experience is heavenly. You can’t fully appreciate this until you live at or visit the flat, sandy beaches further south in Orange County. After you visit, the stark contrast is amazing.
The beautiful Santa Monica Mountains that flank Malibu’s beaches are treasured and such a part of nature. Earthquakes, floods and fires have taken their toll on this portion of the California coast from time to time and a drive through the region provides a visual sense of how that could happen. Sailing northward from San Pedro to Santa Barbara in 1835, Richard Henry Dana described in Two Years Before the Mast a vast blaze along the coast of Jose Tapia’s Rancho Topanga Malibu Sequit. Mountain infernos repeatedly menaced the Malibu area throughout history.
Years ago Sean Penn and Ali MacGraw were among scores of celebrities who saw their homes burn to the foundations. Tony Hopkins offered an apartment to Dick Van Dyke, and Zsa Zsa Gabor gave shelter to some homeless horses, as well. This is life on the edge in Malibu, California. In more recent fires, Suzanne Somers lost her Malibu home and in October 2007, a multi-million hillside mansion used for philanthropic causes, Castle Kashan, was destroyed by a fire sparked by Santa Ana winds.
Highway 1 is a busy place with with shops, restaurants, houses, condos, hotels and the Pacific Ocean usually within view. If you are thinking about relocating, bring your check book. Properties in the $5 million range are not uncommon but can cost $25 million or more.
Or if you are just visiting and are living within your meager means, you can stay in the affordable Malibu Creek State Park Campground. It is open all year round and is located just 25 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The park has over 4,000 acres, featuring hiking, fishing, bird watching and horseback riding opportunities. There are 15 miles of streamside trail through oak and sycamore woodlands an chaparral-covered slopes. Twenty-five-mile Malibu Creek in the park is the principal water-course of the Santa Monica Mountains - from Boney Mountain t Malibu Lagoon. The park was the center of Chumash Native American life for centuries and was once used to film numerous movies and TV shows, such as Planet of the Apes and M*A*S*H.”