THE HOUSE THAT PIPE BUILT
If you’ve spent any time there at all, it may be difficult to imagine, but Pipeline wasn’t always the spotlight-illuminated headliner on surfing’s main stage: the North Shore of Oahu. Until the late ‘60s, that distinction belonged to the big, warbly peaks of Sunset Beach, just a short drive northeast up the Kam Highway. That was partly because of tradition, partly because Sunset is itself a phenomenal wave and partly because, back then, few surfers had actually figured out how to surf Pipe and survive.
It’s equally hard to imagine the beachfront at Pipe during a roaring swell as a sleepy stretch of rural coastline without the throngs of tourists, long lens cameras and food trucks selling acai bowls by the metric ton. But until the surf industry descended upon the place in a feverish horde, that’s exactly how it was: families living quiet lives on the beach, Honolulu residents gone country for the weekends at their quiet beachside rentals.
These days, at least in the prime, swell-heavy winter months, most of the houses along the Seven Mile Miracle (many of which are owned or rented for months at a time by surf brands) are crawling with pro surfers and their hangers-on, sponsored groms trying to learn the North Shore ropes, and surf industry heavies and wannabe heavies wandering (barefoot, of course) through the halls of surfing Valhalla, just hoping to rub elbows with their surf heroes. To maybe get lucky enough to share a beer with one of them on the splintered wooden deck of a surf team house.
Of all the houses where one could be invited into to share that beer, to watch the action at Pipe with those who know it best, there’s one that stands above the rest. It sits just east of the stairs
