In 1942, Franciscan friars paid $50,000 for an unfinished 50-room castle on a hilltop in Malibu Canyon. The price included 26 acres and thousands of Malibu-made tiles still packed in their crates, according to the City of Malibu's history of the Rindge family. The woman who started the house had spent more than half a million dollars on it, then died the year before, deep in debt and almost out of cash. That hilltop is now Serra Retreat, and its story starts with the landowner the newspapers called the "Queen of the Malibu."
Who Was May Rindge, the "Queen of the Malibu"?
Frederick and May Rindge bought the 13,330-acre Malibu ranch, an old Spanish land grant, in 1892 and later grew it to about 17,000 acres. Frederick died in 1905, at 48. May, a former schoolteacher from Michigan, took over the ranch and spent close to a quarter century fighting the railroad and the road builders who wanted to cross it.
The first fight was with the Southern Pacific Railroad, which planned to run track straight through the ranch between Santa Monica and Santa Barbara. A federal rule kept a second railroad from running beside an existing one, so May carried out Frederick's plan and built her own, 15 miles of track along the coast, finished in 1908 with herself as president (City of Malibu, Chapter Four). The little line hauled grain and hides to the family wharf that is now the Malibu Pier. According to the city's history, that railroad is the reason trains on the coast route still turn inland at Oxnard instead of running through Malibu.
The road fight lasted longer. Settlers and the county wanted a public road along the coast, and May answered with locked gates, fences and armed riders on horseback. She lost at the U.S. Supreme Court on June 11, 1923, in Rindge Co. v. County of Los Angeles. The court ruled the county could take the land, and that a scenic road along the shore was a public use in its own right.
Even then, when state crews arrived to build the highway, 40 of her guards met them at the Las Flores gate and kept them off the ranch for three days. The Roosevelt Highway, today's PCH, opened from Santa Monica to Oxnard in June 1929. The city's history says old-time residents called a PCH closure "Rindge's Revenge."
Building May Rindge's Malibu Castle on Laudamus Hill
In 1928, with the highway fight lost, May started a house big enough for her whole family. The 50-room mansion, which the city's history calls the Rindge Castle, sat on "Laudamus Hill" in Malibu Canyon, looking out to sea, with three wings planned, one for each of her three children and their families (City of Malibu).
The house was also a showcase for her factory. May had opened Malibu Potteries on the beach east of the pier in 1926 to bring cash into the estate, and by 1927 it employed about 125 people (City of Malibu, Chapter Five). Its tile went into the castle, her daughter Rhoda's beach house by the lagoon (now the Adamson House) and Los Angeles City Hall. One of the factory's designers, Inez Johnson von Hake, drew a Persian rug made entirely of tile for the new house.
"I've sold only a few homes with the original Malibu tile, but there are many other homes that have the replica tile," says Shen Schulz, broker at Shen Realty, Malibu, California. "I believe in the 1980s, maybe even 1970s, there was a tile factory up in Topanga that replicated the original Malibu tile, and those tiles are much more prevalent in a lot of the homes in Malibu." That Topanga shop is Malibu Ceramic Works, which collector Bob Harris and ceramist Jim Sullivan founded in 1979 to make tile in the style of the originals (Wikipedia). We tell the factory's full story, including how Harris slowly worked out the old methods, in our history of Malibu tile.
From 1929 to 1932, more than half a million dollars went into lumber, concrete, marble, tile and hand-carved mahogany. By then the Great Depression had arrived, years of court battles had left May land-rich and cash-poor, and the house was never finished.
How the Unfinished Malibu Castle Became Serra Retreat
May Rindge died on February 8, 1941, at 76, with her land still tied up by debts and, in the words of the city's account, "practically without funds." In 1942 the Franciscan Order, a group of related Christian religious orders founded in Italy in 1209, bought the unfinished house for $50,000, less than a tenth of what had gone into the building. The friars turned it into a retreat house and named it Serra Retreat, after Junípero Serra, the Franciscan who founded eight of California's 21 Spanish missions.
In 1970 a brush fire destroyed the house and most of the tile set into it, and the Franciscans rebuilt on the same hilltop, reusing tile that survived (Wikipedia). The friars still run Serra Retreat today (Wikipedia). It sits at the top of Serra Road, which leaves PCH across from Malibu Lagoon.
The Old Rindge Ranch in Malibu's Hills Today
After May's death, her daughter Rhoda Adamson ran the family's Marblehead Land Company. By June 1951 its debts were paid, and about 4,000 of the original 17,000 acres were left (City of Malibu). Much of what is now the city of Malibu was once Rindge land. On Point Dume, for example, the company subdivided the peninsula in the 1940s and created the beach-key tracts buyers still ask about, which we cover in our Point Dume buyer's guide.
Some of the hills still look the way Malibu did in the ranch years. "I see a lot of the original style up in the hills of Malibu, the large lots, few roads and big views," Shen says. "Those are sort of on the Mulholland Corridor. It's where we live. And those have the charm of the old world of Malibu."
Closer to the coast, the big parcels were cut up. "Parts of Malibu Park have been parceled off. Same with Point Dume," he says.
For readers who want the whole saga, Shen points to one book. "The history of Malibu is an interesting one, and it's told in the book The King and Queen of Malibu," Shen says in his 2023 video on Malibu's history. "Definitely a good read for California history and Malibu history." The book is by David K. Randall and came out from W. W. Norton in 2016.
"I liked the part about the railroad and how they fought to keep Malibu their own ranch," Shen says of the book.
Living in Serra Retreat, Malibu, Today
The hills around the retreat are now a neighborhood of homes that shares the Serra Retreat name, less than a mile inland from Surfrider Beach and the Malibu Country Mart. "Serra Retreat is a magical community," Shen says. "It's double gated with guards at each gate, very secure, and it's centrally located, so you can walk or ride a bike or take a golf cart to the Cross Creek Road gate, and you're immediately in the center of town with all the new shops and markets and restaurants." He calls it "the best place in Malibu with walkability," with horses at the very back and some neighbors who have lived there for 50 years or more.
The friars' retreat still sits at the back of the neighborhood. "In all my years of living in Malibu since 1978, I have only visited the Catholic church at the back of Serra Retreat twice," Shen says. "But it's absolutely amazing, and it has a deep history."
"I had only had my real estate license about three months, and a buyer client asked me to represent her in the purchase of a home in Serra Retreat," Shen says of the very first house he sold. "I recall the price being around $4 million. I was young, about 30 years old, and new in the business. Her father was a sophisticated money manager, and he put me through the paces."
"This is before there was anything digital," he says. "I had to go around 7 o'clock at night, and I spent about two hours going line by line with every single detail of the purchase contract in front of her father. We ended up succeeding. She bought the house. She lived in it for many years and raised her family."
"About 10 years later, I helped that same client sell the house at $7 million, a $3 million profit for the seller," Shen says.
Many buyers pass on it, he says, for lack of a view. "I don't think most people really understand the true walkability, privacy and security of Serra Retreat," Shen says. "I think a lot of people overlook it because it doesn't have views. Most of the houses are in the canyon without ocean views, and a lot of people at those higher prices want big views."
He compares it with Montecito, the enclave near Santa Barbara. "It gives people a very coastal enclave with easy access to beaches just across the Pacific Coast Highway," he says. "I think it's still an undiscovered part of Malibu. There's not that many transactions."
"But what I love is the large parcels, the privacy," Shen says. "I think a lot of these parcels are at least an acre, and people seem to live there and stay there."
For the perfect setup, Shen would pair it with a beach house. "What would be perfect is a beach house with a Serra Retreat house, so you could live on the sand in a small beach house, but then come back to your large estate with plenty of parking, gated security, an acre of land, and have large dinner parties," he says.
Looking at Serra Retreat Homes in Malibu?
If a house in Serra Retreat or anywhere near the Malibu Civic Center has caught your eye, send us the address or call 310-980-8809. We can pull the recent sales nearby and tell you how the house compares. You can also search homes for sale in Malibu or read our notes on buying a home in Malibu.
Shen Schulz, Sotheby's International Realty. DRE #01327630.
Edited and fact-checked by Bodhi Schulz.
Sources
- Thomas W. Doyle and Toni Doyle, "Chapter Three: The Rindge Family," Malibu history hosted on the City of Malibu website. https://malibucity.org/DocumentCenter/View/399
- Thomas W. Doyle and Toni Doyle, "Chapter Four: The Rindge Railroad," City of Malibu website. https://malibucity.org/DocumentCenter/View/396
- Thomas W. Doyle and Toni Doyle, "Chapter Five" (Malibu Potteries), City of Malibu website. https://malibucity.org/DocumentCenter/View/395
- Rindge Co. v. County of Los Angeles, 262 U.S. 700 (1923), Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/262/700
- "Rhoda May Knight Rindge," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoda_May_Knight_Rindge
- Shen Realty, "The Story of Malibu: From Caballeros to Cattle Ranchers," YouTube, April 1, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMHj7RjTub0
- David K. Randall, The King and Queen of Malibu, W. W. Norton, 2016. https://wwnorton.com/books/The-King-and-Queen-of-Malibu
- "Malibu Potteries," Wikipedia (Malibu Ceramic Works, 1979). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malibu_Potteries
- Interview answers recorded by our broker as voice memos, November 13, 2026.
- "Junípero Serra," Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junipero_Serra