It’s the strangest thing: You can see the ocean. There it is, lapping up against the beaches—Big Rock, La Costa, Carbon—that border the Pacific Coast Highway, flashes of roiling blue in the gaps where the homes of millionaires, billionaires, and Jeff Bridges used to be.
Eight months after the fires that ripped through 24,000 acres of Southern California, the Malibu coastline is missing lots of teeth. Tidy dirt lots interrupt rows of palatial—if a little smoke-scarred—houses. Many of them are now decorated with for sale signs. One 6,200-square-foot lot directly on Las Flores Beach is on the market for just $2.75 million. And under current guidelines, owners can rebuild up to 10 percent larger than the previous structures. Can you say “investment opportunity”?
