Museum Puts City Heritage on View

It’s an odd juxtaposition at first glance: Richard Nixon, surfing pioneers and the U.S. Marines, all under one roof.

“It may seem strange, but it’s all part of our heritage here,” said G. Wayne Eggleston, founder of the Heritage of San Clemente museum.

A retired property manager from San Francisco, Eggleston took $150,000 of his own money and opened the museum in downtown San Clemente two months ago to celebrate the history of his adopted city.

“The most common comment I get from residents of San Clemente is, ‘It’s about time,’ ” he said.

The fledgling museum has a wing devoted to the Nixon years in San Clemente. Until 1980, the former president lived in the Western White House--the seaside mansion that H.H. Cotton built in 1926, which later served as a refuge for rum runners’ boats during Prohibition.

“We’ve had some very strange and interesting people here over the years,” Eggleston said.

The museum also honors local surfing greats, and, with a nod to Camp Pendleton to the south, pays tribute to the Marine Corps, featuring old uniforms and recruiting posters.

Eggleston, 52, said he wants to expand his displays of old San Clemente, which city founder Ole Hanson modeled in the 1920s after villages formed around plazas in Spain and Portugal.

“He had a wonderful, incredible vision for this city,” Eggleston said. “People would congregate around the plazas and create a sense of community, instead of what we find today, as far as strip shopping centers.”

After Labor Day, he plans to bring in fossil displays from the Orange County Natural History Museum in San Juan Capistrano. To show off the city even further, he displays the work of San Clemente artists and spotlights a local restaurant every month.

Admission to the Heritage of San Clemente, at 415 N. El Camino Real, is $2.75, or $1.75 for seniors, students and military personnel. Children under 12 are free. Information: (714) 369-1299.