Overview
About Breakers Drive
Breakers Drive is the strip of ground between Ocean Boulevard and the sand at the harbor entrance, and the city draws it at 4.3 acres holding 33 addresses on 30 parcels. Two street names appear on the record, Breakers Drive itself and Ocean Boulevard above it. The association is gated, and the city street centerline layer runs no public roadway inside the boundary at all.
Corona del Mar State Beach adjoins the boundary at 17.12 acres, with the 1.39 acre Inspiration Point 20 feet away and the 0.87 acre Lookout Point 354 feet beyond that. All 4.3 acres sit inside the Coastal Zone, and a tenth of an acre falls in FEMA flood zone VE, the coastal wave hazard band. The city zones 3 acres for a single unit and 1.3 acres for two units. Harbor View Elementary serves the boundary and enrolled 344 students on the 2024-25 federal count. For the city's own administration the city places it in evacuation zone 44, park service area 10, census tract 627.02.
View available homes in Breakers DriveHistory
How Breakers Drive was built
On Sunday 7 August 1928 the Corona del Mar Surf Board Association ran the first Pacific Coast Surf Board Championship off this sand. It was organized by T. W. Sheffield, who managed the Sparr bathhouse, and it drew fifteen competitors and several hundred spectators along the beach. Tom Blake took silver trophies in both the paddling and the surfing. Duke Kahanamoku would have been the favorite, but he was away filming The Rescue. The wave did not survive the harbor. Between 1934 and 1936 the entrance was dredged and both jetties were pushed out, and in August 1935 a Santa Ana paper wrote that the riders of the foam flecked surf would be seen no more at Corona del Mar. The swell reorganized itself into the Wedge on the far side of the channel, where it still is.
The strip itself has never been built all at once. The beach became a state park in 1947, and the county record carries construction years along this lane from 1939 to 1996, most of the surviving record falling in the 1950s, so the houses have gone up and been replaced one at a time across roughly sixty years. Today it is a private gated lane of 33 addresses with the state beach at the end of it.
By the Numbers
Breakers Drive by the numbers
Lifestyle
The Breakers Drive lifestyle
Schools
Schools serving Breakers Drive
The Newport-Mesa Unified locator was queried at 10 real addresses inside this boundary and returned Harbor View Elementary at every one of them. That campus teaches kindergarten through sixth grade at 900 Goldenrod Avenue and enrolled 344 students on the 2024-25 federal count. The secondary grades are taught at 2101 Eastbluff Drive, which the district names as both Corona del Mar Middle School and Corona del Mar High School and which the federal directory records as one campus of 2,106 students across grades 7 to 12.
7-12 · 2,106 students
K-6 · 344 students
FAQs
Common questions about Breakers Drive
Is Breakers Drive gated?
Yes. The city register records the association as gated, and the city street layer runs no public roadway inside the boundary.
How close is the beach?
Corona del Mar State Beach adjoins the boundary directly, and Inspiration Point sits 20 feet from it. The register draws the association as two lot polygons covering 4.3 acres. Closing the street rights of way between them gives a footprint of 4.3 acres, which is the shape drawn on the district map.
Is any of it in a flood zone?
A tenth of an acre falls in FEMA zone VE, the coastal wave hazard band, with the other 4.2 acres in zone X.
When was this ground subdivided?
Tract 1006 was recorded on October 25, 1937, followed by Tract 1026 in April 1938 and Tract 1257 in September 1947.
What can be built here?
The city zones 3 of the 4.3 acres for a single unit and 1.3 acres for two units. All of it is inside the Coastal Zone, so a coastal development permit can apply alongside the city approval. Corona Del Mar State Beach at 17.12 acres is the nearest city park to the boundary, adjoining it.