The surf’s up at Amherst College after officials sold a former student’s donation of beachfront property in California for $58 million.

The gift was a stretch of shoreline in San Clemente, Calif., about seven tenths of a mile long, housing 90 cottages, reported the Boston Globe last Thursday.

A member of the class of 1919, Roger C. Holden, donated the land in 1968 by establishing a trust that gave the land rights to the College. At the time the parcel was worth $1.5 million. College officials sold the land to a homeowners group representing residents of Capistrano Shores for the reported $58 million, according to the Globe.

There is already a campus theater named after Holden, but the College plans to put $2.5 million toward creating an endowed professorship in the theater department supporting the study of dance in his honor.

Holden followed in the footsteps of his father when he enrolled at Amherst, but did not graduate from the liberal arts college. A student of theater, according to the Springfield Republican, Holden still won a prize for his writing while at Amherst.

Serving in the military during the First World War, Holden also worked in the newspaper business and turned from reporter to professional fundraiser during the course of his career.

Holden moved to California in 1958 with his wife and became involved in the real estate business.

His donation of shorefront property reverted to Amherst College after his wife passed away in 2006.

College officials have not decided what to do with the remaining money, which the Globe described as a “$58 million windfall,” and Amherst College members agreed.

“I think a windfall is a pretty accurate way to describe it,” said Amherst’s chief advancement officer Megan Morey in an interview with the Globe. “We had no sense of the value.”

Derrick Perkins contributed to this report.

Ashley Coulombe can be reached at [email protected].