The Santa Monica City Council on Tuesday accepted a $1 million grant from the Wallis Annenberg Legacy Foundation that officials say will create opportunities in the first year for about 2,700 people who have not been visiting the Annenberg Community Beach House.
The council voted 6-0 to accept the three-year grant, the foundation's first gift to the city-run beachfront facility. Mayor Caroline Torosis moved the item, and Councilmember Natalya Zernitskaya seconded it.
"You all do amazing work, and thank you for finding this money and doing even more amazing work," Torosis told Recreation and Arts Department staff before the vote.
The money will be distributed evenly over three years and requires no local match, according to a staff report. It will fund programs and operations not included in the city's 2026-27 budget request.
Sofia Klatzker, the city's cultural affairs manager, said her team was asked to think about what increasing access would look like programmatically.
"We had to define what access includes and how we increase it, and determined that access must address financial, physical, social, cultural, and informational outreach all at once," Klatzker said. "In order to meaningfully increase access, we must first remove barriers, build deeper and broader partnerships, and expand opportunities once visitors are on site."
About $333,000 is set aside for the first year. A third will go to major public events and a third to new programming and administration. The final third goes to community-based organizations to decide "what they need most," Klatzker said.
City projections estimate first-year reach at 1,200 major-event participants, 480 community-organization participants and 245 new free-program participants, plus 805 passes, validations and class vouchers.
"We've been living and growing Wallis' vision for the Beach House since we opened in 2009," said Nan Friedman, the Beach House venue manager. "This grant allows us to expand on that vision."
She described that vision as one in which people "from all walks of life" have "an accessible place to make memories, experience joy and community, and to feel a sense of belonging."
The plan calls for three or four large public events a year, each drawing an estimated 250 to 400 people. Friedman said staff is exploring an all-ages night sky event with the Los Angeles Astronomical Society.
Community organizations will also design 12 events a year, each serving 30 to 90 people. The events will come with help covering transportation, food, accessibility, language and planning.
"This could range from bringing communities to the beach for the very first time, it could be offering water acclimation education, art making workshops, wellness experiences, and recreational activities," Friedman said.
The city will also add seven free public programs in arts and culture, wellness, environmental education and water safety, plus $5,000 in vouchers for existing Beach House classes.
"We're exploring both one-off workshops and new classes," Friedman said, adding that class series could include singing, drumming, writing, mindfulness and "recreational fun."
Asked when the programs would begin, Klatzker said, "We've already started the thinking and planning, so we think that they could be up and running in the next quarter."
Torosis also asked about reaching people outside Santa Monica.
"There are people that live in L.A. County that have never been to the beach," she said.
Klatzker said Friedman has been calling nonprofit partners, starting with LA Commons. She said Karen Mack has deep ties to Mid City and Leimert Park. Klatzker said Mack also has connections to nonprofits and Olympics-related cultural planning that can help bring people from across the region.
Torosis noted past work with the Black Surfers Collective through Golden Voice and said she hoped staff would engage the group.
"They also have a great reach of bringing youth to the water," she said.
The foundation announced a $10 million gift on Sept. 11, 2025, for signature initiatives reflecting its late founder's vision and named the Beach House a recipient. It approved the city's first-year proposal Aug. 25, according to the staff report.
The Beach House occupies a five-acre parcel of Santa Monica State Beach that William Randolph Hearst developed for actress Marion Davies in the 1920s. The site later became a luxury hotel and then a private beach club. The city opened it to the public April 25, 2009, in partnership with the Annenberg Foundation and California State Parks.
"From a private residence to now," Torosis said, "the evolution of the Annenberg Beach House has been incredible."
The council also found the action exempt from state environmental review because the grant funds programs and operations rather than physical changes.