RIP: Big Wave Pioneer and Surf Industry Founding Father Walter Hoffman

Surfing has lost one of its true pioneers as Walter Hoffman has gracefully kicked out. A surfboard builder, big-wave innovator, titan of the surf industry and committed family man, his legacy will live on in countless ways.

After serving in World War I, Walter's father Rube Hoffman, who spent his formative years growing up working in New York City’s Garment District, landed in Los Angeles. Seeing an opportunity to stake a claim in the burgeoning textile business, in 1924 he started Hoffman California Fabrics in Downtown L.A.

In 1931, Rube’s second son, Walter was born. Older brother Philip, more commonly known as Flippy, had come kicking and screaming into the world the year prior. Growing up along the California coast at marquee surf spots like Malibu and San Onofre, the allure of the ocean called to the boys early, and it called strongly.

During World War II, Walter enlisted in the Navy, where he was stationed at Pearl Harbor. The beatific dream of living in Hawaii, the birthplace of surfing, had been realized. He served his time in the military but spent just as much time surfing around Waikiki and over at the ominous big-wave break of Makaha on the west side of Oahu.

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As the war concluded, there were excess lifeboats on the base in Pearl Harbor. Constructed out of balsa wood—the optimum material for building surfboards at the time—Walter and a couple of industrious friends were able to acquire a number of these boats and use the buoyant, lightweight wood to build boards. They’d sell these boards to friends and locals around Waikiki, essentially funding their lifestyle.

Flippy soon joined his brother in the islands, and after the war the two stayed in Hawaii where they were among some of the first big-wave pioneers on the iconic North Shore. True watermen, when the waves were up, they surfed. When the waves were down, they dove and fished and made surfboards. Those early days would come to epitomize the quintessential surfing dream of living on the beach in a little grass shack.

By the late ‘50s, the Hoffman brothers were back in California and running the family business—albeit with a much more surfy, Polynesian sensibility. One day, Walter was in Laguna Beach surfing when a young kid approached him and asked if he could try out his board. That kid’s name was Hobie Alter. Immediately bitten by the surfing bug, in the ensuing years he would go on to create the world-famous Hobie Surfboards, launch the first-ever surf shop and invent the Hobie Cat. Hobie and Walter formed a tight friendship that would last the rest of Hobie’s life (he passed away in 2014).

It was in their idyllic water-front neighborhood in Capistrano Beach where the “surf industry,” as it is referred to today, was largely born. Hobie was the surfboard guy. Their friend, Gordon “Grubby” Clark, invented the first mass foam surfboard blanks. Another friend, Bruce Brown, made surf movies, including the seminal film, “The Endless Summer.” And yet another friend, John Severson, launched Surfer Magazine in 1960. Then there was Walter and Flippy, who through Hoffman California Fabrics, provided a vast majority of the textiles for the new surf companies that were springing up around the country.

From their aloha-inspired prints, to hand-dyed and batiked fabrics, all the way down to Tom Selleck’s famous Hawaiian shirt in the hit TV show “Magnum P.I.,” they did it all. Over the decades Walter and Flippy have been foundational in the textile world. Flippy passed away at the age of 80 in 2010.

But it was never just about business. Success in their textile company afforded Walter and Flippy the opportunity to live the surf dream. From chasing waves around the world to just watching the sun sink into the Pacific off their back porch, the Hoffman family is one of surfing’s true dynasties.

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Walter’s daughter, Joyce, was a pioneer in her own right. In the late ‘60s, when the surf scene was largely a boy’s club, Joyce had her own signature surfboard model from Hobie and was one of the winningest competitors of the era. Walter’s grandsons, Christian and Nathan Fletcher, were pioneers as well. Throughout the ‘80s and ’90s, Christian’s above-the-lip, aerial approach to surfing was groundbreaking—and ruffled more than a few feathers in surfing’s more conservative establishment. Nathan is still one of the most accomplished big-wave surfers in the world. And the great grandkids are at it as well, from Greyson Fletcher, who is considered one of the best skateboarders in the world today, all the way down to longboard stylist Indie Hoffman and super grom Rex Hoffman, who’s just beginning what is sure to be a lifelong adventure in the sea.

As the sun sets on the patriarch of one of surfing’s greatest families, Walter’s larger-than-life presence and accomplishments, along with the beauty, artistry, creativity and imagination he brought to surfing, has forever changed the business and culture of wave-riding. We’re all indebted to him for that. Ride easy.