Unnerving Solana Beach Caves Will No Longer See Light of Day

Kenneth Victor of Solana Beach knows the shake, rattle and roll of living directly above the most popular sea caves in North County.

Like nostrils in the sandstone, the two caves sit side by side at the bottom of a cliff 100 feet below his bluff-top home. During good weather, the orifices attract curious coastal spelunkers who probe its depths, camp out, build beach fires.

During bad weather, it only gets worse.

In recent storms, cobblestones washed into the caves, which go back about 40 feet, shaking Victor’s seaside residence up above like Dorothy’s tornado-tossed house in “The Wizard of Oz.”

This week, Victor talked the City Council into allowing him to fill in the twin 10-foot-high openings with concrete, ending worries about his own safety and closing the book on a long chapter of Solana Beach spelunking history.

“Apparently, Mr. Victor’s wife said it was a pretty spooky situation to be in that house over the caves during a storm,” Solana Beach Councilwoman Marion Dodson said Tuesday, the day after the council voted unanimously to let Victor plug the holes of his discontent.

“The recent storms washed the cobblestones into the caves, and it apparently made the whole house shake,” Dodson said. “During one of the meetings on the subject, he invited council members to come to his house during bad weather and see for themselves. There weren’t any takers.”

Victor’s wife declined Tuesday to discuss the council’s decision, saying only that the caves represented a public safety hazard and that the couple had circulated a petition to demonstrate neighborhood support for their cave-plugging concept. The Victors have lived in their home since 1986.

Council members were first wary of the idea, fearing that the sandstone would eventually crumble and expose any concrete tube used to fill the cave mouths.

“We just didn’t want to end up with any concrete statue on our hands as the sandstone eroded around it,” Dodson said. “There have been efforts to close off the mouths in the past, and the remnants of those efforts are still there today.”

Under the agreement with the city, the outside 5 feet of the cave will be filled with a cement and sand mixture designed to erode at the same rate as the surrounding sandstone. The rest will be stuffed with steel-reinforced concrete.

Along with Victor and his wife, city officials say they will also rest easier once the caves are history.

“It’s a public safety issue,” Dodson said. “These caves are cool and quiet and people camp in them at night and build fires,” she said. “It’s like another world inside there.

“But who knows when they’ll fall down or in or slough off somehow and hurt or kill someone. It’s not a safe situation, not something you want on a public beach.”

Meanwhile, North County locals say the caves have been part of the area’s insider folklore for years.

Once, a local man lost his lawnmower when it fell into a spout hole over the caves. He later found the mower had washed out to sea.

“Those caves have been around for a long time,” Dodson said. “I know I’ve been here for more than 20 years, and they were here long before I was.”