The billionaire and the beach

David Geffen is one of the world's richest men. For years, his famous beach house has been his private playground. But now, to the delight of Americans, there's trouble in paradise. Andrew Gumbel reports from Malibu

Technically, there's nothing to stop you tramping along the beach to take a look at the house that David Geffen, the music and film-industry mogul, has built himself, overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Malibu. You squeeze down a narrow public footpath next to a restaurant called the Pier View Café, and walk just less than a mile along Carbon Beach until you come to it: a blue- and-white Cape Cod-style façade that looks modest enough until you realise that it covers no fewer than four parcels of prime Los Angeles real estate and includes a swimming-pool, extensive guest lodgings, a state-of-the-art screening room and – for the occasional presidential visit – a flagpole.

David Geffen, of course, would much rather you didn't make the walk at all, and every possible discouragement is offered along the way. The beach access path is unsignposted and near-invisible to those not looking out for it. Carbon Beach is dotted with unfriendly "Private Beach" signs – even though the beach, by law, belongs to everyone. Long before you reach the Geffen house, you risk being accosted by housemaids and butlers who consider that you have strayed too far away from the shoreline toward the boundaries of their rich master's property.

That is the way it goes in Malibu, the swanky resort town just to the north-west of LA proper. For much of the past 60 years, rich people have built themselves fine residences along the water and then done everything in their power to keep the riff-raff out. Since 1983, when Geffen bought his Malibu pad, he has been blissfully undisturbed by the great unwashed who buy his records and films in such enviable quantities. With no obvious way to break through the wall of gates and houses that act like a barricade separating Carbon Beach from Malibu's main drag, the Pacific Coast Highway, he and his neighbours have had the sand, the ocean and the views of frolicking dolphins pretty much to themselves. But that could all be about to change.

Unfortunately for Geffen, one of the conditions of expanding his property, as he has done on three separate occasions, was that he would create a public footpath granting access to his side-gate and the beach right in front of his patio. Until now, this threatened access way was a non-issue because nobody came forward to take on the responsibility of managing it. But now, Geffen has to contend with a small band of campaigners dedicated to the proposition that the beach is public property, no matter who lives on it; they have decided to take him on, undaunted by his power and considerable wealth.

The group, called Access for All, has successfully applied to the Coastal Commission to open up the access path to the beach (or "easement", as it is known in US property parlance) and now wants Geffen to fulfil his commitment and let the public through. Geffen's reaction has been uncharitable, to say the least. Not only has he kept the gate firmly padlocked; a few days ago, he filed a 38-page lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court, asserting his legal rights to keep his privacy intact.

The issue promises to become a classic showdown between an uppity group of public-interest campaigners and a pampered celebrity long used to getting what he wants with a snap of the fingers. Geffen is believed to be worth just shy of $4bn, and has a fearsome reputation as an entertainment-industry ball-breaker. His chief opponent, on the other hand, is a sometime actor, beach bum and art-institute fundraiser called Steve Hoye, who can boast few resources other than his own sheer determination.

It's hardly an equal contest. As Hoye says: "Who would be stupid enough to take on David Geffen? I'm a bug to him... he wants to squash me like a cockroach."

Hoye's trump card is that he almost certainly has the law on his side. The suit against his organisation, jointly filed by Geffen and the City of Malibu, fails to come up with a single convincing reason why the access way should not be opened as the property contract says. Rather, its purpose appears to be to drown Hoye and his fellow campaigners in legal paperwork that will either bankrupt them or else keep the case tied up in the courts for years.

At one point, for example, the lawsuit complains that Access for All is not competent to manage the easement because it "has no substantial background, experience or history in owning and managing property dedicated to public use". What it does not say is that the only requirements for managing a public beach path in California are opening and closing the gate every day and emptying the rubbish container – tasks that do not exactly require PhD-level qualifications.

Hoye estimates that it would take about $6,000 a year to maintain an access path – money that he says is easily available in grants from a state agency called the Coastal Conservancy. His campaign has been vigorously supported by the Los Angeles Times, among others, in part because it touches on an old grievance that some of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in southern California are well-nigh inaccessible because of the selfish behaviour of beachfront homeowners.

Just to the south of Malibu, beach-goers can enjoy full access, including a bicycle path that winds more than 30 miles around Santa Monica Bay. Once those same beach-goers hit the Malibu city limit, however, the public access abruptly stops and the wall of houses begins. All along the highway are signs warning non-resident drivers not to park, on pain of having their vehicle towed away. "Don't even think about parking here," several say. But the admonitions are bogus, utterly unsupported by the California highway code or local police.

Carbon Beach is not the only place where the public is discouraged from straying too far along the sand. At the beginning of the original beach settlement, known as the Malibu Colony, a high chain-link fence acts as a heavy deterrent. On Broad Beach, at the northern end of town, private security guards roam on motorised buggies to keep visitors at bay.

Malibu does have one big public-access beach and a smattering of smaller ones, and clearly, if it were up to Geffen and his Hollywood chums, that is where everyone would go. Hoye, by contrast, believes that Malibu would be much better served if the crowds were dispersed and the true beach-lovers, in particular, were offered more places to explore. "The more the public is allowed to identify with public lands, the more they will take care of them," he argued.

Such sentiments, curiously, often tumble from the lips of Hollywood stars dedicated to environmental causes. Geffen himself is a noted supporter of liberal causes, including the environment, but in this town, liberalism has a funny habit of stopping at the front gate. "In Malibu," Hoye says, "everyone is in favour of beach access, so long as it is access to someone else's beach." And that's going to keep the lawyers busy for quite a while.