A Sovereign Point Dume Estate Above the Pacific

Inside, Choate's design philosophy becomes immediately legible. Oak hardwood floors run beneath beamed ceilings, and French doors dissolve the boundary between interior and coast at every turn. The living room anchors the ground floor with a wood-burning fireplace, its scale generous enough for gathering yet intimate enough to feel personal. Panoramic views of the ocean and Catalina Island are the room's most persuasive furnishing. Adjacent, the dining room opens through glass doors to the same seascape, its coffered ceiling and custom white built-in cabinetry lending a quiet formality to what is, at its heart, a room designed for long evenings among friends.

The chef's kitchen stands as one of the home's most refined spaces. Honed Calacatta marble countertops run beneath white cabinetry, while a Wolf six-burner range and Sub-Zero refrigerator attend to serious culinary ambition. Nautical-inspired brass fixtures illuminate the room with a warm, considered glow, and a curved built-in breakfast nook — upholstered and generous — offers the kind of morning moment that makes a house feel like a home. A dedicated wine refrigerator completes the picture.

Upstairs, the primary suite is an exercise in restraint and reward. Eleven-foot ceilings with exposed wood beams draw the eye upward before the view draws it outward — unobstructed ocean from horizon to shore, greeting each morning with unhurried clarity. A gas fireplace, French doors opening to a private balcony, and a spa-caliber bathroom featuring a metallic soaking tub positioned before a window framing the Pacific complete the suite's quietly theatrical character. Four additional bedrooms, each with distinctive details — Juliet balconies, dormer windows, toile-appointed vaulted ceilings — ensure that every room in this house holds its own.

Outdoors, the 1.5-plus acres unfold with the logic of a private park. Manicured lawns give way to landscaped orchards heavy with citrus, specimen trees cast afternoon shade across the pool terrace, and a bluestone gas firepit anchors the ocean-view deck. A sunlit conservatory, a home office lined with built-in bookshelves, guest suites with garden views, a laundry room, and a property generator round out an estate designed for life lived fully and without compromise. Most significantly, a private gate opens directly onto the path to Little Dume Beach — one of the coast's most coveted and protected stretches of sand — transforming proximity to the Pacific from a view into a daily ritual.

Point Dume occupies a singular position in the geography of the Southern California coast. The headland — a dramatic volcanic promontory jutting into the Pacific at the western edge of Malibu — has defined this stretch of coastline for millennia, lending the surrounding neighborhood both its name and its character. At its highest elevations, properties command views that extend south toward the Palos Verdes Peninsula, west across open ocean, and on clear days, to the distinct outline of Catalina Island rising from the water some 26 miles offshore.

The neighborhood itself developed over the latter half of the twentieth century as Malibu's most sought-after enclave, drawing architects, artists, filmmakers, and those who simply understood that land of this caliber — bluff-top acreage above a protected beach, within reach of Los Angeles yet genuinely removed from it — would not remain available indefinitely. Zumirez Drive, in particular, has long been regarded as one of Point Dume's premier addresses, its elevation and orientation ensuring that ocean views are not merely present but defining.

At the base of the headland lies Little Dume, the private beach accessible only to a select group of property owners whose homes sit above it. Unlike the broader stretches of Zuma Beach to the north — one of Los Angeles County's most popular public beaches — Little Dume offers a protected cove with calmer waters and a degree of seclusion that is genuinely rare on the Southern California coastline. For residents with private beach access, the rhythms of tidal life become part of daily experience rather than an occasional excursion.

Point Dume State Beach and Preserve, which encompasses the headland's public portions, offers hiking trails that wind to the cliff's edge and sweeping views of the Santa Monica Bay. Gray whales pass offshore during their winter migration, and the preserve's ecological significance has helped maintain the area's natural character against development pressure. The result is a neighborhood that feels, against considerable odds, like a place apart.

Malibu's broader amenity landscape is well established. The Malibu Country Mart and Malibu Lumber Yard on Cross Creek Road house a curated collection of boutiques, restaurants, and provisions — Nobu Malibu, Soho House Malibu, and Tra di Noi among the dining options that have made the corridor a destination in its own right. The Malibu Pier, a historic landmark dating to 1905, anchors the town's central stretch, while the Getty Villa in nearby Pacific Palisades houses one of the world's preeminent collections of ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art.

For families, the Las Virgenes Unified School District serves the area, with Malibu High School drawing students from across the community. The Pacific Coast Highway provides direct connection south to Santa Monica and central Los Angeles, placing the estate within practical reach of the city's cultural, commercial, and professional infrastructure while maintaining the physical and psychological remove that defines the Point Dume experience.

This is, ultimately, a place that asks something of those who choose it — a willingness to let the horizon set the pace, to let the ocean define the day. For those who answer that call, there is nowhere quite like it.