George’s Story: They Crushed my Nest Egg

            I was a single parent two weeks shy of thirty when I moved to Southern California in 1975, looking for a fixer-upper on a piece of land where I could have some quiet and enjoy the country. That piece of land did not have to be forty acres, but the house of my dreams came with that size parcel, between Santa Clarita and Palmdale, California.

The home, nestled in a little canyon, is tucked under an immense sandstone formation, and faces a pretty 4000 foot mountain two and a half miles to the south.  Built by a retired stone

mason, the walls are rock, eighteen inches thick.  The building is ingeniously oriented so that the sun does not rise over the eastern hill before ten on a summer morning, and it sets behind the western ridge by four. At night a cool breeze flows down the canyon—and through our dwelling if we open the windows.

Hell's Angels and vandals had abused the house pretty badly. All the glass had been shot out and the window frames were gone. Renters had stapled plastic over the openings. You could see daylight through the upstairs ceiling here and there. This was a genuine fixer-upper.

I had lived in 30 different places, if you count college dorm rooms. I intended to live here only a year then move back to Cleveland, but I fell in love with the place and committed to it. Soon my dream was to grow old here, to retire here. The property would be my nest egg. If the area built up and got too crowded, then I could sell and take my nest egg to buy elsewhere.

The original dirt road to my house is a mile and a half long. It begins at Soledad Canyon Road and runs through Oasis Park. In those days the camp was managed by Bill Jameson, one of the owners and a pretty good singer. On weekends The James Boys entertained park campers and visitors with real live country music. Bill was very friendly, and often even babysat my son when I had doctors’ appointments or other obligations to which I could not take a child. I knew that I had no easement through the park—none of the residents on “the Hill” did—but I did not worry about ever being closed out by Bill or the other owners.

I married Ann in 1984. With my two and our two, four children have grown up in that little stone house.

I certainly did not expect to live here all that long. But I did, and meantime Bill Jameson moved back east and the park was sold. The great irony is that when the third set of owners got serious about closing the way through the park, it was not they but Metrolink, California Fish and Game, and Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (another California agency) who effected the legal closure.

At the moment, Briggs Road residents have physical access to their homes, but it is a pretty insecure feeling that the way could be closed at the whim of the Conservancy. Metrolink and Fish and Game have already had their whim. I had intended to build a better house on my property, since the old one is vulnerable to earthquake, but no building permits are possible now, and stricken property values make it just about impossible to salvage any equity for down payments anywhere else nearby.

Other stories will follow. Meantime please show you care with a comment.

And please subscribe.