Lawndale Tribune
AND lAwNDAle News
The Weekly Newspaper of Lawndale
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 80, No. 40 - October 7, 2021
New Lights Will Shine on the Students of
Lawndale High School’s Academy of Media Arts
The Centinela Valley Center for the Arts is getting an all new LED lighting system. The equipment has arrived and the lights are being assembled by the CVUHSD Production Technicians. The Centinela Valley Center for the Arts is set to be the most prestigious performing arts
center in the South Bay. Photo courtesy Centinela Valley Union High School District.
Kelly Burner from front page
locally made products meshes with the beach
vibe of Burner’s store.
Au grew up with one of Burner’s daughters,
Emma, who happens to sell her own line of
handmade bags, BurneD, made from recycled
denim, at the store. And when his company
was looking for a venue to sell its merch, he
knew the Beach Hut was a perfect fit.
“I grew up in El Segundo,” he said. “I think
about the heritage of El Segundo,” noting how
the Burner’s are a very tuned-in family to the
pulse of the city. “They know everyone,” he
said, mentioning how “growing-up, Mrs. Burner
always had an eye out on us, making sure we
stayed out of trouble.”
Friends with Burner for more than 20 years,
Tracy Weaver, the City Clerk of El Segundo,
patronize the Beach Hut, sometimes looking for
“last-minute gifts,” or host gifts, or something
to add a decorative touch to one of her kids’
apartments, or her own home.
Weaver related that after Burner and her
youngest kids graduated from high school,
she issued a sigh of relief. No more volunteering,
Weaver happily noted. But, Weaver said,
Burner had other plans, following her passion
to continue developing the Beach Hut. “She
has so much energy,” Weaver said. “She just
loves it. Kudos to her for starting a second
career. She never stops.”
So here is the Kelly Burner backstory. She
came to El Segundo in 1988 after attending San
Pedro High school, moving on to El Camino
Junior College, and ending up at Chapman
College, where she picked up a business
management degree.
Before moving to El Segundo, Burner lived
in Hollywood Riviera, noting that she was
“fabulously happy there,” citing her proximity
to the Strand where she could run for exercise
or walk to shop at local markets. When she
married her husband Greg, the couple decided
that buying a place in Hollywood Riviera was,
at the time, a little out of their price range.
So, they moved to Huntington Beach, but,
alas, that experience lasted for all of three
months. Greg was working in the South Bay
for Hughes Aircraft, and his “commute was
horrible.” They flipped the Huntington Beach
home for a profit, and Greg suggested they
look to buy a home in El Segundo. A town that
was not on Kelly’s radar at the time. “Why?”
she said and burst out laughing.
Greg had lived in an El Segundo apartment
after college and was familiar with the charms
of this quaint town. Kelly somewhat reluctantly
began house hunting in El Segundo and, to
use a hackneyed phrase, “the rest is history.
The Burners have raised their five kids here,
with all of them taking the Center Street School
to the ES Middle School to the El Segundo
High School pathway, which seemed to work
out quite well for the Burners. “They all got
to good colleges from here,” she said, “I can’t
complain.”
She has a fondness for her adopted hometown.
“I personally love it,” she said, while wryly
noting that, when her children were rising
through the ESUSD school system, “they hated
it, because everyone knows everyone else’s
business. But it does not bother them now,”
she said, “because they have all moved back.”
“You can walk everywhere,” she said of El
Segundo while noting how some outsiders do
not see it as a true beach community, like the
neighboring towns to the south in Manhattan
Beach and Hermosa.
Since she had five active children attending
school, participating in sports and other
extracurricular activities, she spent her childrearing
years being a Mom, and a chauffeur.
As for work outside the home at the time, she
did not have a lot of spare time for drawing a
paycheck as her kids grew up. “I dabbled in
some things,” she said, with selling real estate
being one of them. Her heart was not really into
real estate, she said. “I probably liked looking
at the houses more than anything,” she said,
as opposed to brokering a deal.
“As the kids got older, and it started to slow
down, I thought, ‘what am I going to do?”
She said she has always been one to shop for
coastal décor type items that her shop displays.
She would visit niche-type shops in Hollywood
Rivera and Manhattan Beach, securing
beachy items for her home. The thought occurred
to her that “maybe I could do something
like this,” selling beach products, and started
running a little boutique at her house.
So, where does Kelly Burner hope to be in
five years? “I was looking to expand, but the
way things are now,” she said, “I just don’t
know,” citing the anxiety of trying to keep a
new business afloat in the era of an epic pandemic.
“I feel lucky that I am still here.” She
does envision a future where she might “have
a couple of stores, and do all of the shopping,”
and allow someone else to run the day-to-day
store operations.
For relaxation, Burner said she creates “seaglass
art,” which she sells in her store, does her
best to keep physically fit, which has been more
challenging since the gym that she belonged
to, the El Segundo Athletic Club, closed its
doors more than a year ago.”
She walks the town, works out four days a
week, and enjoys reading.
Overall, life appears upbeat for the new
grandmother, who continues her mission to
“bring the beach Artist Emma Burner. to your home.” •