[12][10][5] Rindge also founded the Malibu Movie Colony,[13] building and renting cottages—and later selling them—to early Hollywood stars such as Bing Crosby, Gloria Swanson, and Mary Pickford.

Her aunt, Emily Lathrop Preston, the founder and proprietor of a cult-like religious faith-healing health colony in Northern California,[25][30][31] first brought Knight out west.

[39] He had always wanted a farm by the sea, and once he purchased the Malibu rancho as the final Spanish land grant owner of the property, he established a cattle ranch.

He also became deeply involved in civic life, from serving as director of Edison Electric, founding Conservative Life Insurance Company,[40] and promoting Temperance by helping close saloons in Santa Monica to building Santa Monica's First Methodist Episcopal Church[41] and taking the post of vice president of Union Oil.

When he died suddenly at the age of 48[35] in 1905,[42] Rhoda May Knight Rindge was left with the totality of his business dealings,[43] setting the stage for her unusual position at the time as a woman at the helm of a major family estate.

[46] Hence Rindge decided to build his own private track[47][48]—a utilitarian one to service his cattle ranch—but died before carrying out the plan, leaving the operation up to Rhoda May.

[49][47] Rindge had successfully won her Southern Pacific Railroad battle, but on her victory's heels came homesteaders along the edge of her property demanding county roads to be laid through her ranch for the public good.

Rindge was strictly opposed to the idea, entering the law office of O'Melveny & Myers in 1907[9][50] to take up the new fight against the Federal Government and People of the State of California.

Such measures ranged from employing armed guards on horseback to patrol her property and enforce locked gates to digging up roads and replacing them with alfalfa and pigs.

[12][38] Methods included cuerda seca and cuenca,[62] and patterns and iconography were inspired by books from an expensive library with which Rindge furnished the pottery.

Nine thousand cases of Malibu Potteries tile were produced to adorn it, including a massive 13'x 59' all-tile faux Persian carpet,[65][45] and hand-carved mahogany was to decorate it as well.

[67][23] Though most of the castle eventually burned to the ground in the 1970s,[23] various parts were salvaged, including Malibu tile, and the property is still in the hands of the Franciscans as Serra Retreat.

[14] Her relationship with one of her sons was fractured, as he held her responsible for depleting the family wealth so severely between her court battles and lavish expenditures.

[75] In 1933, Rindge gave permission for the pier to be used in what became the iconic movie King Kong starring Faye Wray, earning its place in film history.

[74] As a community, Malibu is known for its wealthy entertainment business denizens, a stage Rindge set by being the first in the area to rent and sell homes to elite actors, directors, producers, and other aristocratic figures.

[78][79] The tile Rindge produced remains in thousands of homes, the most extensive display remaining being her daughter's home, the Adamson House, slightly west of Rindge's pier, while Los Angeles City Hall, the Mayan Theater, The Roosevelt Hotel, the Geffen Playhouse, Dana Junior High School in San Pedro, and other public buildings across the United States—and even some abroad—still contain their own examples of Malibu tile.