By Chelsea Johns

Surfers, with their fat paychecks and glamorous, jet-setting lifestyles, aren’t much different than their Hollywood counterparts. We know the boards they ride, the exotic locales they frequent, and the hotties who hang on their arms, but not every Average Joe has experienced the crip pads that house pro surfers as they lie in wait for the next macking swell, Triple Crown event, or North Shore blowout. We didn’t have time to stake out every oceanfront property speckling the North Shore strip, but we did squeeze in a few exclusive crib tours from some of the Country’s most prestigious team houses during this year’s winter freak show. We let the pros lead the way…

QUIKSILVER PERFORMANCE HOUSE with Mark Healey and Ryan Hakman

Street: Crazy Lane

Break: V-land

Roomies: Rickson Gracie, Kron Gracie, Ricardo Arona, Ze Marcello, Miky Picon and Jeremy Flores

The guys who stay at the Quiksilver Performance House don’t idly watch the surf and spit game at the bikini-clad girls walking by. They train. That’s it. Everyone from Quiksilver CEO Bob McKnight, Quiksilver founder Jeff Hakman and Kelly Slater stop by for a spar. “If you’re there, you have to train. If you don't train, your voice is not heard,” says Legends/Icons Manager Ryan Hakman. “You are either sleeping, training or eating. We are up there preparing for any situation mentally and physically.”

KITCHEN:

The Kitchen gets a lot of use. Vodka and protein powder, that’s the program.

Fridge contents:

• Coconuts
• Haagen Daaz
• Vodka
• Mochi Ice Cream

WORKOUT ROOM: This is where everybody comes to train, stay in shape, learn some new stuff, you can see its pretty packed this morning. Leif is running the show up here. We got Kai [Borg] here, [Dustin] Barca’s over there, Freddy P – blondie! – and Chava... If you could only smell it.

BEDROOM: There’s three bedrooms with AC, two King size rooms who go to the elders and one 10’x10’ with bunk beds that goes to the groms. All the rooms are clean except for Kron’s room.

BATHROOM: The bathroom is small and there’s only one. It smells like any other bathroom that men frequent with no aim or consideration of women.

YARD/PORCH:

I’d say the best thing by far is the view outside of V-land. You can pretty much see from Boneyards down to Waile’e. It’s a beautiful view. You can come up here after you work out, cool down a bit.

RIDES: We roll on quads. Leif a.k.a. “Ring Leader” has two fully equipped hunting Quiksilver country quads, with gun racks. Ryan Hakman, “The Boss”, has a 1984 Toyota 4x4 truck, the entire truck is Lava lined, looks like a rust proof tank. Bobbely pulls up in his lowered Nissan truck with Cadillac rims on it, still primer paint job with some gay lime green racing stripes. Joel Tudor shows up every once in a while on his pink Vespa.

VOLCOM HOUSE (the “B House”) with Alex Gray

Street: Ke Nui Road

Break: Pipeline

Roomies: Tom Dosland, Kilian Garland, Tom Rudd, Tai Vandyke, Claire Bevilaqua and Aubrey Falk

The Volcom house is the most notorious team house on the North Shore. It is the unofficial home of the Wolfpak and was featured in a memorable scene in Blue Crush when Anne Marie Chadwick angrily snatches her little sister, Penny, away from a party there. But while the boys at the house know how to throw down a world-class rager, don’t believe all the hype. “Coming over to stay at the house for my first time I really didn't know what to expect,” says 24-year old Volcom Girls rider Aubrey Falk. “I was prepared for some intense situations, but I was actually really surprised at the level of respect and hospitality that I was shown. Volcom really is like one big family. Tai [Van Dyke] is great. He really makes that house. Borg does, too. They lay down the law: Do your dishes, pick up your s--t, have some respect for the incredible opportunity to be staying at one of the most amazing surf spots on the planet. I feel totally blessed to have this very rare opportunity to experience living here. The guys were even gentlemen enough to give me a place to sleep upstairs, which is not the usual treatment for newcomers to the team. The house is still pure testosterone for the most part, with Ultimate Fighting playing on TV, and behind closed doors? It’s a guys house for sure.”

KITCHEN:

Dishes. Dishes must be done, all day every day. From when you wake up until the sun goes down. Open up the refrigerator. You got your assortment of yogurts and turkey bacon, some cheeses and other fine assortments. Come over to the freezer. What do we have in here? Some frying chicken parts. Frozen gizzards? Ok, we’ll put that back in there.

Come over to the shelves, we got our fruit assortment, we got our expensive glasses, real expensive. Come on down to the secret stash – this is all organic, all naturale, we got our organic sprouted golden flax. So good. It just tastes so good when it hits your lips.

ROOMS:

The Kaua‘i room:

This is where I’m staying right now. You’d think after living out of a suitcase nine months of the year, I’d figure out how to use hangers, but I’m keeping it real. Really important part of staying at the Volcom house is having your stash of food and water because you never know. That stuff is gone like that. I got my own private stash down here. Don’t tell anyone.

Maui Room:

You’ll normally find guys like Tai Van Dyke and Tom Dosland here. Right now we got Killian Garland staying here. Any fine points about this room you’d like people to know about?

Killian: We got these things to hang your boards….

Alex: What do you got in your fridge? Oh wait, probably shouldn’t open that….

[walks to the closet] So that is vacuums and all that stuff. Got to keep the house clean. Always.

DUNGEON:

The dungeon is actually the crippest room in the house. It used to be the room that you never wanted to stay in. I just graduated from there. They pimped it out this year.

Tom Rudd: We got my bed. Got all the groms who sleep down here. There’s a poster up here, I think its Madonna. “Pink is Punk.” We got a black light too so you can light up Madonna.

BOARD ROOM:

Tom: This is where all the magic sticks are at. We got everybody’s magic sticks. Couple of my boards, Dean Morrisons, you can’t even walk around, there’s some wild cats, some kitties. There are probably about a hundred boards in here.

BATHROOM:

Here you got your bathroom. Typical bathroom: toilet, shower, you got your toiletries- toothbrush, bandaids – essential in Hawai‘i, condoms….what? Lets get out of here.

YARD: The infamous front yard off the Volcom house. Here we have our deluxe pleather couches, one hundred percent all naturale. That’s some baller stuff.

Tom: This guys stealing the show! I’m on TV. This is the TV over here.

This is the leather couches, this is the other leather couches. Beachfront. We’re at a beach in Hawai‘i, sitting on leather, barbequing every day. We just took out the stripper pole. Too much b----s coming over.

Alex: Let’s check out the foosball table. Foosball is our savior for when the waves go flat, but the main reason we all stay here is standing right in front of us. Check out the view.

RIDES:

This is our Audi, 2007. The thing is off the hook. It’s actually stolen. Shhhh….

Now my favorite thing of the house, the Volcom Van. We got the Volcom Club Wagon. You got your 100 mph horse speed, three seats in the back. This is how we roll. After we take a cruise in the team van, we’ll come over and check out Chava’s ride. Chava be rollin’ on—19’s! Woo. Got a nice new paint job, tinted windows and just picked up our new couches. But the best thing about this car has to be the bumper sticker: Relax this ain’t the mainland. Frickin’ haoles!

Now my personal vehicle – rented it for two months. This is a 3.7 liter Jeep. Rented. Pretty much the most baller thing you can have.

REEF HOUSE with Tonino Benson

Street: Ke Nui Road

Break: Rocky Rights

Roomies: Jay Thompson, Ben Bourgeois, Thiago Camero, Leigh Sedley, Stephen Koehne, Mick Short and Dylan Goodale

Located steps away from Rocky Rights, the Reef house is one of the bigger, and cleaner, team houses on the North Shore – probably a result of being located several blocks from the party houses and party people closer to Pipe. And while you’ll find Reef logos littering the Rocky’s lineup from dawn til dusk, the boys still know how to have fun. “We had all the Aussies up in the master bedroom and they bought a DJ mixing machine so it was constant techno all day long,” explains Reef Domestic Team Manager, Jeremy Saukel. “Then Fanning arrived and we celebrated his world title for two straight days while our [Hale’iwa] event was on hold. The highlight was all of us heading over to breakers at 8:30 am to watch the Jacksonville Jaguars beat the San Diego Chargers!”

KITCHEN:

This is the dining table where we grind. We just eat here.

This is the kitchen. There’s cereal, breakfast food, here’s the knives, spoons and forks. Here’s the refrigerator. You want to look in the fridge? There’s a lot of soymilk and some other stuff. This is the pantry. There’s some good stuff like all kine snacks and stuff.

ROOMS:

This is the Brazilian guy’s room [Thiago Camero]. The laundry room is in there too.

We’ll go upstairs. We’ve got the first room upstairs. It is another Aussie: Josh [Dowlthwaite]. We got all the drawers and stuff. Extra blankets. A pretty cruise room. Mellow vibes.

This is Shorty’s [Mick Short] room from Oz.

This room is Stephen Koehne’s room. This is probably the biggest bed we have. These are all his boards and stuff.

This is kind of the main upstairs room. We got a computer, a couch that folds out into a bed, an abundance of different kinds of clothing all over the place. This is where I sleep. This is where Dylan [Goodale] sleeps, and my friend from Big Island, Mahi. Here’s the outside [porch]. Sometimes we just come out here to relax. It’s pretty cool, with the wind.

BATHROOM: In the bathroom we have just the usual toiletries such as shampoo, soap, and body wash. I have a few boards in the bathtub. I put them there so the guys downstairs do not use them.

YARD: This is the outside of the house. There’s an outside shower. There is Shorty’s board. This outside shower is pretty good. Hot water. It’s nice after a surf. You can do yoga out here—if you do yoga.

RIDES: We have several bikes that me and the other guys ride. We need some more bikes if anyone wants to sponsor us. Heath has a minivan to take some of the guys to the contest and Bobby has his own car, not sure what brand.

BILLABONG B HOUSE with Chris Bennets

Street: Ke Iki Road

Break: Log Cabins (Logs)

Roomies: Dylan Longbottom, Laurie Towner, Brent Savage, Tamaroa McComb and Jasper Endersby

Just steps away from the beach, the Billabong Log Cabins house seems to be the namesake of the break it stares into. The house’s frame is literally made of layers of tree trunk and smells like a cedar forest. “The Logs house is one of the very first homes on the North Shore and it is famous for being the house where all the big wave legends stayed when the true Log Cabins used to break miles out to sea at about 40 to 50 feet,” explains Billabong Australia Team Manager, Jeremy Scadden. “We always have a super cool vibe flowing through the house and all the boys get along real well. They always play pranks on each other and there's always the competition of who can invite the most girls around. I think this year Tamaroa went real well in this area. Best part of the house would have to be the verandah, especially on sunset, there's nothing better than sitting back with a Corona and watching all the groms go wave for wave out the front, then all coming in and getting a huge feed from Foodland. I’m pretty sure the boys spent more time there than they did in the water this year!”

KITCHEN: We’ve got the kitchen over here where Chef Dylan cooks up a storm. We got a pretty packed fridge: some goodies, a bit of healthy food, and all the basics. We got different yogurts, treats - Twix’s - Dylan’s got all these beers. We share all the milk, eggs, salad, fruit and stuff. We just take turns on cooking. The other night Dyl cooked a mean stir-fry. We’re gonna cook nachos tonight. This stuff is amazing – Hagen Daaz. Probably the best ice cream you can get. We’ve got a couple frozen pizzas, frozen burritos that aren’t too good. Nobody steals anybody else’s food. We’re all pretty good with the dishes. When the younger guys get here, they’ll probably be on dish duty

ROOMS: This is Laurie Towner’s room. Couple more boards in there. A double bed because he’s the biggest guy on the team. He’s about 7-foot.

Dylan’s bed’s is in there. He’s got the double bed because obviously he’s the oldest. He gets priority. He’s got a big wardrobe, side lights, little ocean view. We got no say in who gets this room, he’s the oldest, the guy looking after us all.

They’re all pretty small rooms. It kind of smells like a sauna in here [the wood from the house]. Here’s the grommets room. My bed’s there. Another bed will be going down on the floor here. Chuck a mattress on the ground. We’ll probably end up having eight or nine guys in here. And we got our cupboard with our iPods, PSP, clothes and stuff. The boys went shopping yesterday, picked up a nice new pair of Nike’s. Pretty sweet.

BATHROOM: We got our bathroom, with a little toilet. Don’t know why that thing up there is locked. We got our shower here, which is actually the entrance to the house. It’s kinda weird.

YARD: Outside we got our outdoor shower over here. Pretty neat little setup, it’s just attached to the tree. Here’s a little tap to wash ourselves down after a surf and a little footbath to get the sand off your feet when you get in. This is the entrance to the house. Here’s a couple of the boys. Boys just had a feed. I got a couple of boards laying around the place. Main stack of boards over here.

RIDES: This is the van. This is the transport while we’re in Hawai‘i. It’s a big seven-seater van. We always just chuck these seats down. There’s a bit of rubbish on the floor. We got Dyl’s tennis racket. The boys have been having a hit on the tennis courts. You can probably fit about eight boards in here; you just throw these [seats] down. We drive down to Sunset or Haleiwa. If we’re going to surf Off-the-Wall or out in front we can just walk. We use it to go to the food shop and get dinner and that. That’s our car.

O’NEILL GIRLS HOUSE with Sage Erickson

Street: Ke Nui Road

Break: Pupukea

Roomies: Kyla Langen, Hailey and Sierra Partridge, Amandine Sanchez and Malia Manuel

The team houses aren’t just for the boys anymore— the female pads are just as luxurious and just as fun. Sage Erickson gave FSM a tour the day after the O'Neill Girls Team Challenge went down and the yard looked like a blow up toy graveyard with the half-full Heineken keg chilling on ice under a beach umbrella.

“All the girls got along great and are all ready to surf and have a good time,” says Women’s Athlete Marketing Manager, Karin Moran-Kendrick. “We had the perfect blend of girls together and just the right amount of sarcasm and taunting going on to keep entertained and on your toes. Our house always seems to be the meeting spot for all the girls, so it’s great to always come home to a bunch of friends.”

KITCHEN: We have two kitchens, thank god, because we always have so many people in the house all the time. Bananas, fruits—trying to be healthy. A lot of us try to train and work out while we’re here. Here’s the fridge. We got Lei Lei’s leftovers. For the older girls, beer. And some leftovers from Thanksgiving. We got vitamins, always good. Smoked almonds.

Here’s our second kitchen. Same deal, this is kinda the healthy section of the house. The girls over here try to eat really good and granola, dried fruit, that kind of stuff. And in here: leftovers from the O’Neill Girl Team Challenge. All the girls went wild so we had catering and stuff and just knick-knacks. It’s good [that we have two kitchens] because we all eat a lot and so we have a lot of room and everyone hangs out in the kitchen.

ROOMS: This is one of the ladies, Brenda [Fried], who works for O’Neill. She stays at the house and kind of looks out for all of us, makes sure we’re not getting into too much trouble. Nidia, from Puerto Rico stays here. So we all kinda bunk up in all the rooms. We’re all pretty close friends so it works out pretty good. She’s got the sneaky backdoor.

In here is my room and the twins that ride for O’Neill, Sierra and Hailey. This is our bunk bed. I got the top and they got the bottom so they share down there. Their bed is all nice, but mine is still a bit messy. Suitcases, closet, just the usual.

YARD: The backyard just a really pretty view of Pupukea, Gas Chambers and ‘Ehukai. Lets see what goodies we have. Hoola Hoops. All the girls are pretty wild and like to have a lot of fun so we mix in hoola hoops for a workout or just funny things like that. We got a lot of leftovers from the team challenge. We just have a bunch of stuff we have a lot of fun with. Take a couple oars or a raft out and just play in the shore break. That’s kinda what everyone does.

There’s our barbeque. We don’t use the barbeque so much because you have to put coals in it and a lot of us aren’t really into the whole barbeque process. We usually go to Ted’s or Foodland.

Back here in the side yard is where everyone puts their boards—we have boogie boards, not just surfboards. Bigger boards for when it gets bigger and everyone’s board bags.

RIDES: We got a couple bikes. A lot of bikes go missing on the North Shore, especially at our house. We have a team van that O’Neill rented. It’s actually really fun and we rented it at a placed called VIP so you’d think the rent-a-car would be really nice, but it’s really, really beaten up. The mirrors and things like that are completely missing. And we actually got pulled over the other night and the insurance was expired for three years. Luckily the cops around here are really nice when we told them where we got the van.