Hermosa Beach has more than two dozen parks. Some, like Valley Park, are big enough to host a soccer game and a Shakespeare play at the same time. Others, smaller and less visible, rely on history for their charm.
Sandhill Parkette, also known as Seawright Park, is firmly in the latter category. Sean Berens, a Hermosa resident and member of local Boy Scouts Troop 860, lead a renovation effort at the park earlier this year for his Eagle Scout project. And on Monday, the city honored him as he and others christened the park with a new sign.
The park, which sits near the intersection of Manhattan Avenue and 22nd Street, was dedicated to the memory of Suzi Berens, Sean’s mother, who passed away at the end of 2014. In brief remarks after Mayor Justin Massey honored Berens for his hard work and contribution to public space in the city, the Mira Costa High School senior thanked his parents for encouraging his involvement in the program.
“They brought me to scouts, and they kept me in it,” Berens said as his father Norm looked on with pride.
The project began last year when the younger Berens was looking for his Eagle Project, a community service project that is a requirement of earning the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. Berens settled on refurbishing the park, which he and other neighborhood kids would decorate during the holidays, and which he often passed through when he was a member of the run club at Hermosa Valley, led by Annie Seawright.
The park was originally a “sand hill” maintained by Seawright’s grandparents, who lived nearby. But by the late 1970s, a home bordering the current park had staked out a claim, putting a barbecue and lawn chairs. In 1979, Bill Schneider, a longtime resident and friend of both the Seawrights and the Berens’s, discovered that the area was public property, and, with the approval of the Public Works Department, cleared the area and paved the way for Sandhill Parkette.
With a set of stairs and two trellises covering beds of plants, the park carried on as more or less a local secret, invisible to those who just drove by. It also deteriorated. The trellises on the old garden were in poor shape and were being eaten by termites, said Schneider, who will serve as caretaker for the new park.
Berens settled on the project just as Chris Lombardi, a contractor, was remodeling an adjacent home. Lombardi ran a new gas line under the park stairs, poured new concrete, and helped Berens get the project off the ground.
Berens oversaw the construction process, which relied on younger scouts from the area and used drought-tolerant plants. Berens’ father Norm said that the Eagle Scout project put a premium on leadership, not grunt work.
“Sean was not allowed to touch a tool during the process,” Norm said.
Berens said that part of the Eagle Scout project is choosing something that will endure. He plans to check on the project periodically when back from college, and younger members of Troop 860 could do regular maintenance.
Steve Sasso, scoutmaster for the troop, said that fewer than 10 percent of those who begin the Boy Scouts will make it to the rank of Eagle, and commended Berens’ service.
“Sean has served in just about every leadership job,” Stasso said. “From Cub Scouts and all through Boy Scouts, Sean has been an example for everyone.”
