As the single owner of one of the largest and most valuable pieces of American real estate at the turn of the last century, May Rindge had enemies: State Highway technocrats. Land developers. And railroad barons. Each wanted a chunk of her 13,000-acre estate that constitutes much of modern-day Malibu. Southern Pacific Railroad wanted to lay track. Developers wanted to build beach houses, and the State wanted to construct a highway to connect L.A. with Ventura. Costly legal and political battles inevitably ensued. And within two decades of the death of her husband in 1905, Frederick Rindge, her fortune was ensnared. Land rich and cash poor, she searched for a way to preserve her massive estate and realize Mr. Rindge’s dream of creating an ‘American Riviera.’ She hired geologists to search for oil, but they found something else: clay. Vast quantities of red and white clay lay buried in local bluffs and canyons. The era’s breakneck housing growth and the region’s appetite for Mediterranean-style houses produced a strong demand for ceramic tile. In 1926, after the discovery of clay and a $250,000 investment from Rindge, Malibu Potteries was born. Today, more than 70 years after a fire consumed the factory and Rindge’s business dream, the tiles that Malibu Potteries created are considered to be among the highest quality American-made tiles ever produced. And they adorn some of the region’s most respected landmarks. Twenty-three large and subdued art-deco tile panels adorn the inner sanctums of L.A. City Hall. At the Mayan Theatre, Malibu tiles steeped in indigenous style were used to decorate the floors, walls and ceilings. At Serra Retreat and the Adamson House, both built by the Rindges, almost every room was designed with a reverence for the tile. Spanish-Moresque tiles garnish shelves, bath tubs and fountains there. At Serra Retreat, the tiles were also used to create a 60-ft.-long Persian ‘rug’. Countless homes throughout Southern California, which were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s, featured Malibu tile. Architects and developers of the era imagined Southern California as the new Mediterranean Riviera and borrowed heavily from Spanish and Italian style. This meant incorporating tile into the design of every part of the house–and big money for companies like Malibu Potteries. Cristi Walden, a docent at the Adamson House, has spent the last 25 years studying and collecting Malibu tiles. She attributes their high quality and the company’s early success to Rufus Keeler, Malibu Potteries’ manager. Although Rindge owned Malibu Potteries, Keeler was responsible for the construction of the factory as well as the overall production of the tiles. He brought decades of ceramics experience to Malibu Potteries. After graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he studied ceramics, Keeler began making tile for several companies in the San Francisco area. And he helped to produce the tile used to refurnish San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. The Malibu Potteries’ factory was built on the beach a half-mile south of the Malibu Pier, and Keeler slept in a tent outside during the week. In historical accounts, former employees described lunch-breaks spent swimming and canoeing in front of the factory. According to Walden, Keeler’s secret glazes account for the tiles’ legendary strength and luster. Glazes resemble glass and provide protection for the clay, and they are critical to the longevity of tile. Decades after they were created, the tiles show few signs of aging. Keeler fiercely guarded the glaze used to make Malibu tiles. In fact, anyone who entered the glaze room without permission could expect to be fired from the company and banned from the industry. It is known now that Keeler used ingredients not easily available to his competitors and not legal to ceramists today: lead, cobalt and uranium. Malibu Potteries and its contemporaries used oil-fueled kilns to heat the clay, which are now illegal. While Malibu tiles’ glaze was a secret, its artistic designs were not. Keeler built the factory with the artists in mind: they shared an office with large windows that overlooked the ocean. He wanted to create an environment that inspired the artists, but the overwhelming popularity of old Spanish styles did not demand creativity. Frequently, the design team directly replicated tile patterns from European design books. Their patterns generally followed Spanish-Moresque, Persian and Art Deco templates. Of the 40 tile companies that competed with Malibu Potteries in the 1920s and 1930s, only two have survived. Despite the longevity of its creation, Rindge’s company was short-lived. Born in the boom of the 1920s, it died during doldrums of the Great Depression. Weakened housing growth after the onset of economic bust meant constant uncertainty for the new business. Malibu Potteries was stuck in a cycle of hiring and firing its talented work force. But fire ultimately debilitated the company. In November 1931, a fire started at night in the clay preparation room of the factory and burned 50 percent of the plant and inventory. Despite a few failed attempts to resuscitate the business, it officially closed in 1932. In only six years of its existence, Malibu Potteries produced hundreds of thousands of square feet of tile. But decades later, the tiles are scarce and valuable. A single tile can be sold for thousands of dollars. Paradoxically, the high value of Malibu tile is the greatest threat to its survival. Thousands of homes constructed in the 1920s used tile, and each year dozens of homeowners call the Malibu Lagoon Museum in hope of confirming that their tile was created by Malibu Potteries. And all too often, people are willing to tear out pieces of the tile from their homes to sell pieces individually, even if that means ruining the original work, said Walden, who authenticates Malibu tile. Perhaps as a function of this trend, Malibu tiles have acquired a new life. Mosaics constructed of a pastiche of tiles have proliferated. Office buildings in Santa Monica mix Malibu tiles with other tiles in a mix that is redefining tiles’ aesthetic of fragmentation.
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