What was the location of Roddy McDowall's Malibu beach house?

As always, we try to address the most pressing issues of our day: world hunger, global warming--and today, the location of Roddy McDowall's beach house.

To cut to the chase, 23560 Malibu Colony Road.

In 2011, several home movies shot by Roddy McDowall at his beach house in 1965 were uploaded to YouTube. They featured stars like Paul Newman, Natalie Wood, Rock Hudson, Judy Garland, and Julie Andrews.

But searching for the address of the beach house on Google always comes up empty.

So I viewed each of the videos to see if I could figure out where the house was.

First clue, of course, was Malibu. And it was directly on the sand.

Second clue was that several of the home movies included shots from the beach itself. Looking west, a continuation of houses along a curving sandy cove, eventually to a point of land jutting out to the south. No pier in sight, by the way. And no Point Dume in the background.

This narrowed the search to essentially two spots in Malibu where the land curves into a cove, and where there is no pier and no Point Dume.

Possibility #1 would've been on Malibu Road just east of Corral State Beach. However, (1) the video clearly shows houses stretching all the way around the cove, and there are few houses along Corral Beach; (2)  Roddy's house opens directly onto the beach at sand level, while the houses on Malibu Road tend to be up on stilts; (3) one of Roddy's videos shows the road in front of the house; it is flat on the land side, unlike the hillier Malibu Road.

Which leaves possibility #2: Malibu Colony, also known in the old days as Malibu Movie Star Colony. The houses in the distance extend all the way along the cove. The houses are close to the sand. And the land to the north is flat.

So Roddy's house was likely located somewhere along Malibu Colony Road. But where?

The big clue was from a video featuring Julie Andrews and her daughter.

 

Roddy followed them as they left his house--out onto the street. Looking into the distance, you can't see the end of the road--so it is a ways off.

Julie and her daughter get into their car, which is presumably facing east. She starts the car, then backs up, turns around, and heads west. 

That means the only exit was to the west. Which means they were to the east of the main road into the colony.

The best clue comes in the final seconds of the video--a car turning from the main road--the only intersection in the colony!

So Roddy's beach house was likely one of the first three houses east of that road--since replaced with larger houses.

Looking at the Google map, one can clearly see the brown house that Julie walked in front of on the north side of the street, the white picket fence next to it (which now appears to be brick), and the white garage and short driveway in which she turned around (which look exactly the same).

And now that we know we're close, note the two-story house with the dormer windows a couple houses to the east of the red circle. It looks like it has been there a long time.

Sure enough, now that we're looking for it, we can see it in the background of a few of the 1965 home movies.

In fact, it's the third house down from Roddy's. Which means Roddy's house was the one in the middle of the red circle--23560.

Here's a comparison of photos from Roddy's house in 1965 and from the Zillow listing for the current house:

Note that either rocks have been brought in to prevent beach erosion, or they were completely covered by sand in 1965. In any case, there's a lot less beach now, and a lot more steps to get to it. 

Case closed. Now, on to less important topics.