Modeling students

Gay Wassall-Kelly

It’s the late 1960s, the “undisciplined age.” Parents were sparing

the rod, “good grief” miniskirts were the fad and Charles Manson was

facing the death penalty. Some felt it was time to get the kids out

of “this substandard life” and prepare them for a better world.

What could be more perfect for your child than Copre College

Preparatory School, situated on the ocean front on the spectacular

Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach? Here stands this elaborate 1930s

California Spanish Colonial revival building that was the former

Balboa Inn. The new school, a unique college prep environment for the

student with above-average potential, accepted girls and boys from

the sixth through the 12th grade.

Audry and Wayne Weber founded the school in 1968. Classes were

small, affording students individualized attention. Copre offered

physical education in a spacious gymnasium and a beach in front of

the school, science and language laboratories, a growing library and

home economics department.

“I remember when the school took over the two buildings in ‘68,”

said George Grupe who came to Newport Beach in 1923. “They built the

large swimming pool with sundeck that remains today. I stayed a few

nights at the Inn during WWII when I visited my family on Balboa

Island. I remember there were no bathrooms in the rooms so we had to

walk down the halls kind of like a dormitory. It was beautiful and I

bet the kids loved it as a school.”

There were many enrichment courses that few schools offered during

these times. The arts included intricate creative writing (student

magazines), watercolor and oil painting plus elaborate school drama

classes. “Boys only” created gourmet recipes (no hot dogs and

burgers) -- from layered cakes to exotic foreign dishes. For “girls

only,” there was “Modes and Manners” classes on appropriate grooming,

etiquette and modeling, plus ballet that would build poise and self

confidence.

Copre boasted of their faculty and administration as a dedicated

power that would provide an ideal structured situation to stimulate

maximum academic performance. They offered a five-week exchange

program in Switzerland with Copre’s European faculty members serving

as escorts. Foreign or out-of-state students could board in the

furnished rooms of the former inn.

The Copre goals were set for those families who sought for their

children high standards of ethical and moral conduct.

Balboa’s Copre had to be one of our best kept secrets. As I

researched with this question, “Do you know anything about Copre?” I

received dead silence followed by, “Never heard of the place -- a

school in the Balboa Inn?”

Copre, Balboa Inn was closed in the late ‘70s. A Copre Christian

School opened in Corona del Mar in 1978 (closed now) but were they

related? Let us hear form any former students of Copre College

Preparatory School in Balboa or Corona del Mar.

* LOOKING BACK runs Sundays. Do you know of a person, place or

event that deserves a historical look back? Let us know. Contact

James Meier by fax at (949) 646-4170; e-mail at

james.meier@latimes.com; or mail at c/o Daily Pilot, 330 W. Bay St.,

Costa Mesa, CA 92627.