Gertrude Southworth (1862 - 1946)

Brighton Beach acquired its name after Nellie and Frank Waterhouse created Brighton Avenue and offered lots for sale in 1882. This view from the Little Mesa in Bolinas was taken near the studio of local artist Jack Wisby whose painting of this very scene, painted in 1916, is now in the Bolinas Museum’s Permanent Collection.

The large house in the foreground is just to the right of the current ramp as you walk to the beach at the end of Brighton Avenue. The house has been greatly expanded since the days of Gertrude Southworth. Prior to the ramp, the beach was accessed by steep stairways.

Beyond are the Frenetta House and the Dodge house, built about 1900, when there was plenty of land and beach. Even then rapid cliff erosion was threatening the houses. Here men can be seen working on building sea walls in an attempt to preserve the cliffs. By the 1940s the Dodge house had to be dismantled. Today both houses and their land are gone, leaving a sharp cliff at the edge of Terrace Avenue seen here above the two houses.