A Malibu resident worried about the demolition of a 50-foot-tall lighthouse offered the structure to Pepperdine, which accepted the donation. Officials had not yet decided where to place the structure, but one possibility was at the John Tyler entrance to the Malibu campus. The lighthouse had long been a landmark in the area, standing at 15100 PCH (on Will Rogers State Beach), but at no point had it ever shone a light to aid sailors' navigation.¹

The structure was damaged while crews tried to move it, and it wound up spending several months on its side in a parking lot on campus.² A decade later, The Graphic reported that a maintenance vehicle had backed into the lighthouse, causing further damage to the termite-infested structure. The lighthouse, which never was erected on the campus, ended up in a landfill.³