Site of the Childhood Home of the Beach Boys

Only Dennis surfed. The family lived about five miles from the water in a tract house on this corner, and it was here in 1961, with Murry and Audree away in Mexico City, that the boys cut the demo of Surfin' on Brian's home tape recorder. The instruments were rented on a loan from Al Jardine's mother, not on the grocery money the story usually credits. The Century Freeway took the house in the 1980s. When the landmark was dedicated on the empty lot in 2005, Brian was the only brother left to stand on it.

What the plaque says

It was here in the home of parents Murry and Audree that Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson grew to manhood and developed their musical skills. During Labor Day weekend 1961, they, with cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine, gathered here to record a tape of their breakthrough song "Surfin'." This marked the birth of the rock group known worldwide as The Beach Boys, and the beginning of an historic musical legacy that would change the recording industry. The music of the Wilsons, Love, Jardine, and friend David Marks broadcast to the world an image of California as a place of sun, surf, and romance. Brian Wilson would become a legendary producer, arranger, and songwriter. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 1041 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the City of Hawthorne, May 2005.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Santa Monica Pier — 11 mi
  Where the Mother Road runs out of continent, and where the End of the Trail sign gives the drive somewhere to finish.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 18 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.
• Colorado Street Bridge — 18 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.

More markers nearby

• Centinela Springs — 3.4 mi
• Manhattan Beach State Pier — 5.1 mi
• Watts Towers of Simon Rodia — 5.6 mi
• Old Salt Lake — 6.1 mi