The Surfrider Hotel

Across the Pacific Coast Highway from Surfrider Beach and the Malibu Pier stands The Surfrider Hotel, a modest 1953 roadside motel given a thoughtful second life by designers Matthew and Emma Goodwin. The bones remain simple midcentury California: white brick, breezeways, balconies open to salt air. Inside, warm teak, linen, and hand crafted furniture create the calm of a well kept beach house rather than a typical hotel. The rooftop bar looks straight onto the famous break where surfers have gathered for decades, turning the building into a quiet grandstand for Malibu’s daily ritual of tide, light, and longboards. It feels relaxed, personal, and distinctly of this stretch of coast where surf culture became legend.