Cándida and Jeff Wohlgemuth hadn’t expected to buy in Malibu, and a mobile home was never on their radar. But when their housing search turned up few options they liked, Jeff expanded their parameters. A 1970s-vintage double-wide trailer at Point Dume Club popped up.

Designers and founders of WHLF Studio, Cándida and Jeff, who had sold their house in Venice, fell in love with the family- and kid-friendly community. “Malibu was a pipe dream, but the first time we went through the gates and saw how beautiful the homes were and how friendly the community was, it made us realize it was a very special, unexpected place,” Cándida remembers. “And it overlooks one of the most beautiful stretches of beach.”

She and Jeff also loved that the trailer had undergone only modest updates since it was built 50-odd years ago. “It wasn’t so much love at first sight, but love at what it could be. There’d been some deterioration over the years, but we saw glimpses of something really special,” Cándida says. Less special were the popcorn ceilings, closed-off galley kitchen, layers of wallpaper and laminate flooring, and an oddly situated bathroom that contained the only door to the backyard. Other than the large front windows and vaulted ceilings, there wasn’t a lot to preserve, they thought.

Situated just off Pacific Coast Highway on a bluff overlooking Zuma Beach, the 299-unit development, with its guard-gated entrance, pool and tennis courts, and a path to the ocean, has a manicured, country club feel. The homes themselves aren’t extravagant—most are in the ballpark of 1,700 square feet—and they sit close to their neighbors. But they’re also priced less than your typical Malibu beach house, which can easily climb into the tens of millions; Facebook’s former CEO, Gideon Yu, just paid $52 million for a home on Point Dume, setting a record for the area.

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The club, like the mobile home park in nearby Paradise Cove, may be Malibu’s best-kept secret. “At Point Dume Club, you can pay between $900,000 and 1,000,000 for a fixer or a tear-out all the way up to $2.5 million for a completely redone home or something with an ocean view,” says real estate agent Bracken Carter, who grew up in Paradise Cove and now lives at Point Dume Club.

Paradise Cove’s mobile home park, with its private beach and Bohemian vibe, is popular with well-heeled second-home buyers and has attracted the likes of directors, actors, and musicians; singer Stevie Nicks bought a home there for $4 million in 2014 and sold it two years later for $5.3 million, a record for the park. But it’s also home to people who grew up there and have returned to raise their kids, as well as some who never left.

Bracken’s father, David Carter, was one of the first agents to sell mobile homes at Paradise Cove, which now has 271 units. He’s lived there since 1979. “People started coming to Paradise Cove in the late ’40s and early ’50s,” he explains. “It became a haven for fishermen, who brought their caravans for overnight stays in the park’s lower section.” Over time, people started leaving their caravans there permanently.

By the late 1960s, he says, single-wides began taking up residence. The park’s owners began selling individual units in 1971, around the time Point Dume Club was developed.

Cándida and Jeff got a crash course in the world of mobile homes when they purchased their unit for less than $1.1 million in 2022. In most parks, buyers own the structure and lease the land it sits on, so there’d be no property taxes to pay. Instead, they’d pay “space rent,” a number that increases every time a mobile home is sold. Because the couple’s unit hadn’t changed hands much over the years, the rent was manageable.

The home was still in escrow when the couple invited contractor Marvin Coti, who has ample experience doing renovations at the club, out for a look. Using the existing 1,650 square feet, the couple reworked the two-bedroom, two-bath plan to encompass four bedrooms and two baths, borrowing space from what is now the living area as well as a long, narrow room that had been added by a previous owner.

“It’s like a two-and-a-half-wide,” says Jeff. “The rooms were weirdly laid out, so we decided to orient them the way we wanted.” Adds Cándida, “You buy these homes prefabricated, so there’s not a lot of consideration given to exactly how they’re put in.”

At the front of the home, the galley kitchen became part of an open-concept living/dining room that now features two picture windows—one of which looks west to the ocean. A slider that had opened to the carport via a three-foot drop was moved to the primary bedroom, and in place of the odd corner bathroom, Cándida designed a midcentury-inspired faux fireplace.

Now that the renovation is complete, the couple has put the home up for sale at $2.1 million, about double what they paid for it. “The project was never intended to be a home flip,” Cándida says, explaining how she and Jeff made decisions that made sense for their family, honing their design skills along the way. But “life just happened.”

According to Bracken, who has the listing, it also happens to be a seller’s market, “mainly due to the steady demand for homes in communities like these and the lack of inventory,” she says. “But buyers can still get good deals. You really can’t find anything under $4 million on Point Dume unless it’s a mobile home or a condo.”

Then there are the intangibles that mobile homes offer, particularly in a place like Malibu.

“People are realizing they don’t need as much, whether it’s space or material things,” Bracken says. “And because there’s very little maintenance on these homes, it’s more about being outside and enjoying nature and the proximity to the beach and the mountains.”

Related Reading:

Deciding to Rebuild After a Fire Is Just the First Step

Harry Gesner’s Legendary Sandcastle Hits the Market for the First Time

Project Credits:

Interior Design: WHLF Studio / @whlfstudio

General Contractor: Marvco Construction / @marvco_construction

Architect of Record: Studio Schoening / @studioschoening studioschoening.com / @studioschoening