Artist Takes a Stand on Knoll Hill

Peter Schroff brings a new vision overlooking the port

San Pedro isn’t your typical California beach town. Outside of James See’s Surfboards, and the  now closed San Pedro Surf and Sport it’s not necessarily known for its surf culture except for a few surf bands. It is known worldwide for being the location of the largest industrial port complex in North America.

For centuries, San Pedro’s rugged coastline — and reputation — attracted explorers, fishermen, artists, bohemians, gangsters and war criminals, alongside other Angelenos looking for peace, quiet and sometimes a place to blend in or hide. As a consequence, at the terminus of the 110 Freeway, we encounter neighbors with unusual backstories and fantastical aims — such as surfboard craftsman Peter Schroff.

Three years ago, Schroff bought out the last holdouts on Knoll Hill and renovated the property into his new home, a studio and a couple of vacation rentals. Those holdouts survived the port’s attempt to raze the hill in the 1990s in an effort to expand berth’s 97-102, now occupied by China Shipping. Those holdouts stuck around in 2007 when Eastview Little League was granted temporary use of Knoll Hill for its baseball fields until a permanent location could be secured despite community advocacy for broader community use. Spoiler alert: Eastview Little League is still there, and a dog park was installed at the foot of Knoll Hill as a compromise of sorts in 2008. Now the dog park is slated to be removed to make room for a new off-ramp for the 110 Freeway. Schroff, however, intended for this space atop Knoll Hill to serve as a community gathering place overlooking the Port of Los Angeles and the Vincent Thomas Bridge. 

Schroff calls this place Superlove, a concept that will be explored later. Adjacent to the main house is an annex featuring six private surreally themed dining rooms, which he intends for this town’s creatives to run. These dining rooms include a community kitchen, two lounges, a stage, prop room, art studio, gallery, workshop and vegetable garden for guests. The home features art collections including vintage designer furniture. The architecture throughout the compound articulates a pan-Asian influence. The community is invited to visit and Schroff plans to conduct performance, art and design workshops in this “community art complex.” 

Ironically, the offshoring of surfboard manufacturing to low-wage Southeast Asian countries inspired his performance art of taking a chainsaw to surfboards manufactured in places like Thailand. Schroff staged his notorious demonstration in 2016, wearing Hello Kitty underpants as he destroyed a HaydenShapes Hypto Krypto surfboard. The absurdity of his current circumstances isn’t lost on Schroff.

 “[I] ended up on a hill overlooking all the Chinese junk imported into this country, ‘the gatekeeper,’” Schroff said. “Surfboards are one of the last hand-made products made in this country … it’s a dirty job but somebody’s gotta do it.”

If people have learned one thing collectively in 2020, it’s that community can help make things better. Schroff is on a mission to connect the community, especially the youth through art, performance and creating. 

Young Designer

Born in Newport Beach, Schroff took up surfing at 11 years old. He began designing his own surfboards at 14, creating his first board on his family’s kitchen table. Soon after, he began to shape surfboards at home, under the moniker “Underdog.” 

Schroff spent years reinventing and perfecting the modern twin fin board. At this time the Schroff label was born alongside the genesis of high performance surfing known as Echo Beach.

“I lived in Newport for the early part of my life,” Schroff said. “It was a community. It’s where I began surfing and my ambition drove me to make surfboards — and making the best surfboards possible.

“Then, Newport turned into a vacation rental, summer beach resort dead end town.”

Eventually, Schroff’s surfboard designs rose to the level of art. Then he stopped making them. Schroff returned to making surfboards after a 25-year hiatus. But upon his return, he found a surfboard culture that had been reduced to a “pop-out culture” [A term for the mass manufacturing of surfboards with the aid of machines in largely Southeast Asian countries]. 

Schroff spent those 25 years pursuing an arts education and arts interests in the 1980s downtown Los Angeles arts colony. He enrolled into California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita and spent time in downtown Los Angeles, visiting galleries and attending art shows for most of his life. Moving there was an obvious choice for him. After moving there, Schroff founded the design company Superlove and launched successful brand campaigns for surf industry leaders such as Quiksilver, Gotcha, O’Neil and Ocean Pacific. 

Attending CalArts introduced Schroff to the concept of “art and commerce” leading him to question if the two can coexist. Since then, he’s kept one foot in art and one foot in design. After 40 years he’s still experimenting with freedom and creativity. Indeed, his Superlove creation mirrors what he created when he resided in downtown Los Angeles and Venice, respectively. While living in Los Angeles, he rented a warehouse at 4th and Alameda, in the center of the arts community where several of his “art family” lived.

“Studio 3-A blossomed, as a performance space where we held performances nightly and invited the community to perform their works,” Schroff said. “A few years later developers started to move in, develop the warehouses in our area, rent shot up from 20 to 30 cents a square foot to 85 cents, LACE [Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions] our community gallery moved out, our watering holes [Gorky’s, Cocola, etc.] moved out, The Wall & Boyd closed … the artist moved out.” 

In 1987, Schroff bought a house in Venice, a three-story steel, concrete and glass modern minimal floor complex to house an expanded operation with two exotic rentals and studios.

He hosted performance workshops in a converted garage and built another studio to house a design studio where community members worked on projects for retail, restaurants, night clubs, advertisements and events. The project was featured in the Los Angeles Times and various design publications. By 2015, much of Venice’s boardwalk facing the beach duplicated Schroff but Venice’s charm and culture was displaced by high paid tech employees and developers.

Back to the Ocean

“It was time to move to a place with some elbow room to cultivate, San Pedro,” he said.

“I spent 31 years in Newport: 31 years in LA and now my final 31 years — I’m going to [live to] be 93 —  are going to be spent in San Pedro,” Schroff said. “San Pedro is still off the beaten path … still rough around the edges. I ventured up and down the coast for the glove that fits to house the future Superlove headquarters. I’m a surfer and I like the ocean and I like the Harbor, the working Harbor.”

Schroff describes the residents who live in San Pedro as “down-home” salt of the earth types of people. He said he finds that those who stumble upon his Knoll Hill abode love what they’re up to. Superlove is the name of his operation, which he described as a weird mysterious thing. Superlove is the zone that he always operates in. He referenced David Byrne’s film project American Utopia … perhaps, borrowing the lyric, ‘The world is making sense and they’re destroying each other. So we operate in the zone of not making sense.’ 

Asking what do the senses really want, Schroff replied that they don’t want to shop at Target or Walmart. Instead, they want to be a community; they want love and attention. What’s important to him is community, interacting and creating together. 

“This project has been developing for over 20 years,” Schroff said. “I have a lot to offer the community. We gave our operation the Superlove title in 1998 as a reference of giving back more than you take. If everyone gave back more than they take, what would the world look like?” 

Schroff presented and answered his own question, offering a circular solution that could’ve been inspired by surfing tubular waves. 

“Why do kids join gangs?” he asked, rhetorically. 

He gave myriad reasons, including drugs, weapons, a sense of belonging. He suggested giving them self-expression, or letting them take an improv class and learn self-expression. Schroff imagined they could express themselves and perhaps take a different turn, adding the world would go a lot differently if people didn’t ignore issues for a shortcut. 

“It doesn’t have to be complicated,” Schroff said. “Kids can be on a teeter totter. [There’s one] way to the gangs and insecurities or they can take improv classes and discover who they are.” 

Schroff has studied with some of the best improv teachers and he wants to work with youth, including in gangs, in this way. 

“I can relate to gang kids,” Schroff said. “I got my eardrum punched out confronting the gangs up here [on Knoll Hill]. I said, ‘I don’t mind you coming up here and having some romance but be respectful. Don’t throw your trash up here, don’t do donuts in the lot next door and throw the dust up.’ Then after getting a busted eardrum we hugged and shook hands. I have no problem working with kids and confronting them and standing up to be a man and be a mentor. I have no problem relating to younger folks wherever they may be. Most of my friends … are half my age or a fraction of my age. Through my experiences in life and my training and practice I’ve learned to be very good with young folks and very respected by them.”

He pointed to the job center at the foot of Knoll Hill, Harbor Occupational Center, saying it would be nice to work with them, to have students work in the restaurant, maintain the gardens and do things to earn a living. 

Eventually, Schroff hopes to get support from the city. He referred to the proposal at West Harbor, saying they want to make San Pedro into another Marina del Rey. He argues if people step in as a community, we can regulate it so that it grows culturally rather than sells out for simple condominiums.

“If we can build the voice and the productivity of the community, can you imagine the voice and the power we would have in inspiring other communities?” he said. 

Schroff said in 1998 he tied a red ribbon on his finger. It reminds him to be peaceful and to not have anxiety. He paints it every week because it wears off. The ring is his reminder to relax and take a deep breath, and that he is going to be of service because being of service makes him happy.

“I wouldn’t look at it as a noble cause,” Schroff said. “I would look at it as an internal being that wants to share its wisdom on a poetic life.” 

Details: www.schroffsurfboards.com