A breathtaking, mile-long stretch of sandy beach on the remote San Mateo County coast, flanked by towering cliffs and once owned by rock singer Chris Isaak, will become a new public park — the first of its kind in 51 years.

On Tuesday, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 to buy Tunitas Creek Beach for $3.2 million in a below-market sale from the Peninsula Open Space Trust, a non-profit Palo Alto environmental group that purchased it from the famed crooner for $5 million in 2017.

The property, about eight miles south of Half Moon Bay, is the first major coastal beach added to the San Mateo County parks system since Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in Moss Beach in 1969.

“It is a secluded, wonderful, beautiful spot,” said San Mateo County Supervisor Don Horsley, a former sheriff who has led efforts to preserve the area. “It is an awe-inspiring place. You cannot help but be moved by the cliffs and beach. It is going to be something people are going to really enjoy.”

Supervisors also voted Tuesday to set up a new fund to cover the costs of building restrooms, hiking trails, picnic tables, interpretive signs, overlooks and parking at the property. The $7.2 million fund also will cover other costs, such as setting up a water system and tearing down a ramshackle house on the cliffs above the beach that has been boarded up for several years.

Agreements between the county and the Peninsula Open Space Trust call for the new county park to be opened to the public by the fall of 2022.

“Our goal is to have safe, appropriate public access,” said Walter Moore, president of the Peninsula Open Space Trust. “It’s really remarkable we will be opening up for all to enjoy what would be exclusively protected only for the very wealthy in many parts of the country.”

The 58-acre property is open to the public now, but on an informal basis with no amenities. County efforts have dramatically improved the conditions there in recent years.

Starting about 10 years ago, the beach became the site of wild, sometimes dangerous parties. Hundreds of people with stereo systems, disco balls, tents, kegs and mattresses left huge amounts of trash, set off fireworks and used Tunitas Creek Beach as a bathroom during all-night raves. Four years ago, a San Jose man drowned there.

A company known as Todd Gelfand Trust, which is linked to pop singer Chris Isaak, purchased the bluff-top land, a small house and most of the sand on the beach in 1998 for $3.1 million. Isaak, 63, a Stockton native who had hits in the 1990s with songs like “Wicked Game,” was never seen at the property and never lived there, local residents say. The singer has declined interview requests to discuss why he purchased or sold the land.

A landslide wrecked the home’s water system. And the rowdy parties presented an increasing legal liability.

“It was more trouble than it was worth,” Horsley said. “Landslides cut off the water. The foundation on the house was cracked and unstable, and he didn’t have access to water or sanitation. He didn’t want to make a profit. He just wanted to cover the costs that he incurred in buying it in the first place. I thought it was a fair deal. He wasn’t looking for $15 million or to make any money on it, he just didn’t want to lose any.”

After Isaak sold it to the Peninsula Open Space Trust three years ago, county supervisors passed an ordinance banning motor vehicles, fireworks, camping, littering, dogs and firearms on the beach. Authorities put up signs on the bluffs outlining the new rules, and banned parking on a particularly dangerous stretch of Highway 1. They began ticketing violators and increasing patrols in the area.

“The bad behavior is almost totally gone,” said Lennie Roberts, a longtime San Mateo County environmental activist. “Hopefully this is going to be a new era where people can be inspired by this place and also take care of it.”

Roberts praised the county and the open space trust for their ambition.

“It would naturally have gone to state parks,” she said. “But state parks didn’t have the resources or the vision or leadership.”

California has not added a new state park since 2009, the longest such stretch since the 1920s when the state parks department was established.

A non-profit group called TLC locals still leads monthly volunteer cleanups at Tunitas Creek Beach.

Studies have shown that endangered steelhead trout live in Tunitas Creek and that the beach is home to snowy plovers, a rare bird. The vast beach, with cliffs more than 100 feet tall on the northern edge, looks similar to Point Reyes National Seashore.

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Plastic food wrappers now No. 1 trash at global beach cleanups Famed Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola and his men camped along Tunitas Creek in 1769 during their expedition from Baja California to San Francisco Bay. The property was in private ownership for generations, its breathtaking cliffs and sand dunes hidden from motorists zooming along Highway 1 between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay.

Funding for the new park came from a variety of sources. The California Coastal Conservancy, a state agency funded by parks bonds and other sources, provided $1.2 million toward the county’s purchase price, with the other $2 million coming from the state general fund, approved by former Gov. Jerry Brown.

The $7.2 million fund to convert the area into a park is comprised of $3 million from the state general fund; $2 million from San Mateo County; and $2.2 million from the Peninsula Open Space Trust.

“It’s classic California coast,” said Moore.