The seawall at La Jolla’s Children’s Pool was built in 1931 to create a safe swimming area for children. Ellen Browning Scripps, a wealthy local philanthropist, funded the concrete breakwater because she worried about the dangers that open ocean waves and currents posed to young beachgoers. The structure curved around a small cove, shielding it from surf and creating a calm, protected pool where kids could wade and swim safely.
Nearly a century later, the seawall still stands, but the beach behind it looks nothing like what Scripps envisioned. Sand buildup, harbor seals, water quality problems, and decades of legal battles have transformed Children’s Pool into one of the most contentious spots on the California coast.
Ellen Browning Scripps and the Original Vision
Scripps was one of La Jolla’s most significant benefactors in the early 20th century, funding libraries, parks, and scientific institutions across San Diego. The Children’s Pool breakwater was a straightforward gift: she paid for a curved concrete wall to be built around an existing rocky cove, blocking incoming waves so the water behind it stayed calm enough for children to swim. Construction finished in 1931, creating a 0.7-acre artificial pocket beach.
The engineers who designed the breakwater knew sand would collect behind it. They built sluices, essentially gated openings in the wall, that could be opened periodically to flush out accumulated sand and maintain the swimming pool. A local newspaper reported on the sluice design in June 1930, before construction was even complete. The idea was to keep the beach small and the water deep enough for wading and swimming.
How Sand Buried the Swimming Pool
The sluice system failed almost immediately. Soon after the breakwater was completed, the sluice openings were permanently sealed with concrete. Without any mechanism to flush sand, the beach behind the wall grew steadily wider, year after year. Photos from 1931 show seven stone steps descending into the water. By 1935, just four years later, the shoreline had advanced to cover roughly 40% of the breakwater’s length.
The accumulation never stopped. By 1989, the beach stretched about 75% of the way to the end of the breakwater, leaving almost no protected swimming area. By 1998, it reached 80%. Over 67 years, roughly 3,000 cubic yards of sand piled up behind the wall. Engineers later calculated that removing just 45 cubic yards per year would have been enough to keep the beach at its original size, but that maintenance never happened.
The result was exactly the opposite of what Scripps intended. Instead of a calm ocean pool, the breakwater created an ever-expanding dry sand beach with minimal water access. The original purpose of the Children’s Pool was, as a University of California analysis put it, “defeated by the amount of sand accretion.”
Harbor Seals Move In
As the beach grew and human swimming declined, harbor seals discovered that the sheltered cove made an ideal resting and breeding spot. The same features that were supposed to protect children from waves, a curved wall blocking ocean swells, turned out to be equally attractive to marine mammals looking for a safe place to haul out and give birth.
The seals became a permanent colony, and their presence triggered a conflict that has played out in courtrooms and city council chambers for decades. On one side: groups arguing the beach was deeded to the public for children’s recreation and should be restored. On the other: wildlife advocates insisting the seals deserve protection under marine mammal laws.
Legal Battles Over Access and Protection
Courts initially sided with those who wanted the beach restored. A judge ordered the City of San Diego to clean the water and return the beach to its 1941 configuration, which would have meant dredging sand and displacing the seal colony. But before that could happen, the California state legislature stepped in. Senate Bill 428, signed into law in January 2010, amended the original 1931 land grant to allow the seals to remain. The court order to dredge was vacated.
The city now closes Children’s Pool beach to all public access from December 15 through May 15 each year, covering the harbor seal pupping season. During those months, signs and barrier chains block the lower staircase, and an emergency access gate stays shut. A 2018 state appeals court ruling upheld the seasonal closure, finding that public access can be regulated based on the circumstances. The California Coastal Commission has authorized the closure to continue for 10-year periods.
Water Quality Concerns
The seawall created another unintended consequence: poor water circulation. With waves blocked and the sluices sealed, water inside the cove doesn’t flush the way open coastline does. The combination of stagnant water and a large seal colony has led to chronically elevated bacteria levels. San Diego County regularly posts health advisories for Children’s Pool, warning people to avoid water contact because bacteria levels exceed health standards. Even if the beach were fully open to swimmers, the water quality would be a problem.
What You’ll Find There Today
If you visit Children’s Pool outside of pupping season (mid-May through mid-December), you can walk down to the seawall and watch the seals from a respectful distance. The breakwater itself is a popular spot for photos, with views of the La Jolla coastline and the seal colony resting on the sand below. During pupping season, the beach is off-limits entirely, though you can still view the seals from the bluff above.
The seawall remains structurally intact after more than 90 years. What it protects, though, has changed completely. A structure built so children could safely splash in calm ocean water now shelters one of the most accessible mainland harbor seal colonies in California. The philanthropist who paid for it could not have predicted that outcome, but the seals are, in a sense, benefiting from the same engineering logic Scripps applied to children: a wall that blocks the waves makes the shore safer for the vulnerable.