Wreck Beach has survived a lot in its 40-year run as one of the most famous nudist beaches in the world, from plans to replace its topless bathers with highway blacktop to invasions from crusading evangelists leading fully clothed, anti-nudity protesters onto its sacred sands.

Now, the venerable au naturel paradise, long synonymous with the city's multimellow lifestyle, is under threat from a new direction. Above.

If the University of British Columbia has its way, in the not-too-distant future, when Wreck Beach users look up - way up - they will see a row of high-rise residences, full of students, staring down at them.

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Some have already dubbed the proposed buildings Peekaboo Towers.

"It will be creepy," said Judy Williams, who has been fighting for most of her 61 years to keep Wreck Beach from being wrecked. "And the advent of webcams makes it doubly creepy."

The four residences, to be built on a slab of land close to the campus cliff top overlooking Wreck Beach, will be 20 storeys high, capable of housing nearly 2,000 students.

After on-site experiments with balloons and a blimp floated to the equivalent height of the buildings, Ms. Williams said yesterday that 10 storeys will have to be lopped off the height of the tower closest to the beach to prevent buff bathers and students from eyeing each other.

The 300,000 estimated annual users of Wreck Beach are already under constant invasion from beach-level gawkers.

Busloads of Asian tourists regularly hike down the steep trails to the 7.8-kilometre swath of surf, sand and logs, according to Ms. Williams.

"They come down here in their high heels and business suits, with their cameras. It causes a lot of ill feeling. You start to feel like you're in a zoo."

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But Ms. Williams, long-time head of the Wreck Beach Preservation Society, said the increased potential for voyeurism is not the only problem with the proposed towers.

Their construction will spoil the view from below, she said.

Wreck Beach is still surrounded by forest. When sunbathers gaze up toward the top of the cliff, they see nothing but trees.

"There's been no change since Captain Vancouver and Simon Fraser were here," Ms. Williams said. "It's the last beach cloaked in a forested area that we've got, except for Stanley Park, and it must stay that way.

"No one wants to see these obstructive monoliths sticking out above the trees."

The large university, home to nearly 40,000 students, is already under fire for what some see as pell-mell expansion and development plans on a campus renowned for its natural setting and spectacular views.

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"This is about so much more than nudity," Ms. Williams said. "It's about spirituality. It's about saving an eagle tree, and it's about looking across the water from Richmond or coming into the city by sea and not wanting to see four 20-storey towers sticking out."

UBC officials could not be reached for comment yesterday, but university vice-president Dennis Pavlich said last week that the nudists' privacy will be protected.

"We want to be neighbourly. . . . If a building has to have some storeys lopped off, we will."

Ms. Williams, a retired special-needs teacher, has been coming to Wreck Beach since a boyfriend introduced her to its birthday-suit splendour in the late 1960s.

"I've skinny-dipped ever since I was a kid. I've always loved being kissed by the sun, clad only by the sky. It's just part of who I am."

Over the years, Ms. Williams said, Wreck Beach has become a main draw for naturalists from all over the world. "It's just so beautiful down there. Everyone knows about it, and I intend to keep on fighting to preserve it until I drop."

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In the meantime, the beach's tireless advocate, with an almost unbroken record of past successes, remains confident that this latest threat to its purity will be beaten off, too.

". . .This is part of the city's legacy and UBC will not get away with destroying it."