Newport Coast/Crystal Cove

Purchase Original Oil Paintings and Archival Quality Canvas Giclée Prints

Crystal Cove State Park and Newport Coast Art collection featuring paintings of the former El Morro Trailer Park, Crystal Cove Cottages, Crystal Cove Beach, and Pelican Hills Golf Club.

This stretch of coastline south of Newport Beach and north of Laguna Beach was a favorite destination for the Orange County artist in the fifteen years that he lived in Orange County. The park features three miles of Pacific coastline, plus wooded canyons, open bluffs, and offshore waters designated as an underwater park. Though this beautiful beach is adjacent to Pacific Coast Highway, the traffic is mostly obscured by the bluffs and is scarcely seen or heard. For being wedged in the center of populous Orange County, there is an astonishing sense of remote tranquility about the place. Naturally this fact lends itself to the inspiration of a great deal of Orange County art.

Besides the beauty of the beach, a 1,140 acre underwater park has been designated within the boundaries of Crystal Cove State Park. This unique park offers snorklers and SCUBA divers an abundant and diverse view of marine life and is fully protected under the Fish and Game Marine Wildlife Refuge Act.

Beach Access is available at three points:

Reef Point - A quarter mile multi-use trail heads north from the parking lot and descends down to the beach. A stairway leads to Scotchman's Cove and to the south, a ramp leads down to Muddy Creek, an excellent body surfing area.

Pelican Point - There are four bluff top parking lots with access points to the beach. A one mile multi-use trail parallels the coast.

Los Trancos - This parking lot is available for access to the Crystal Cove Historic District. From the parking lot on the inland side of Pacific Coast Highway, a tunnel leads under the highway and to the Crystal Cove Cottages and The Beachcomber at Crystal Cove restaurant.

Crystal Cove history:

Crystal Cove was a favorite site of the original landowners James Irvine II and James Irvine III. They generously allowed employees and friends to erect small shelters and cottages along the beach and against the bluffs in which to enjoy the summer months in. It became a tradition for many families who had enjoyed the Cove since the 1920's to return to this captivating place each summer. In the late 1930's, as some cottage owners made improvements and began staying more permanently, the Irvine Family decided that the cottage owners must make a choice. They were invited to choose between moving their cottages off the property or relinquishing ownership and leasing their cottages from The Irvine Company.

This relationship remained in place until 1979. It was in this year the State of California purchased the land from The Irvine Company to form a state park named after Crystal Cove. In the same year, the site was named to the National Register of Historic Places and forty-six cottages within the 12.3-acre site were granted this distinction.

Over the next three decades, the cottage owners remained in place as time continued to catch up with many of the cottages. Eventually, due to a variety of reasons including disrepair and possible water contamination concerns, the State Parks made the decision to terminate the leases and to renovate the salvageable cottages.

Today, this area constitutes the only remaining California beach community that has remained virtually unchanged in the past sixty years. The oldest remaining cottage was built in 1921. The renovated cottages are now available for short-term stays.

Down the coast at the southernmost end of Crystal Cove State Beach at El Morro, a trailer home community also existed. Here, it was once handy to have a mobile home that could be moved at high tide to higher ground. Eventually these trailers were raised above high water and placed permanently on their raised foundations. These trailers no longer line the beach and have since been replaced with public access to the State Beach.

A number of the paintings and prints in this collection of Crystal Cove art feature the Crystal Cove Cottages and the former El Morro Trailer Park. Perhaps if you have spent time in this area or would like to purchase a special Crystal Cove gift or souvenir for a friend, we hope you might consider these Crystal Cove paintings and prints.

Thank you for visiting.