Last week's edition of 25 October, featured a front-page article by Marianne Napoles concerning three older properties and upcoming changes regarding them. A 2.6-acre property that Napoles noted has been called "The Haze" since the 1970s and which is off Canyon Hills Road just north of Carbon Canyon Road and behind the Circle K convenience store was sold.
John Klavins owned the property since 1962 and died two years ago and his heirs sold the parcel to Alchemy Acquisitions, LLC this past July. Napoles reported that the firm has been engaged in cleaning of the property, though nothing was said about future plans. She did note that the zoning is low density residential, allowing no more than eight housing units.
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| The photos here are a sample of incidents in the last several weeks where drivers have drifted from Carbon Canyon Road and damaged guardails, signs and fences along the state highway. Click on any image to see them enlarged in a separate window. |
What was not stated in the article, likely for reasons of available space, was that Klavins acquired the property when it was being used as a social club under several names. The first was Club El Circulo, which was opened by the Olinda Development Corporation in August 1961 and lasted until about spring 1964.
Then, the same company opened the Canyon Hills Swim and Saddle Club, with Olinda's subsidiary the Circle C [get it? El Circulo?] Development Company as manager, with the new version opening in July 1964. Soon, however, there was another change and the facility was rechristened as the Canyon Hills Country Club, apparently during 1965.
The following year came another transformation as the site was repurposed into the strange novelty known as Ski Villa, in which club buildings were turned into offices and other uses while, across Canyon Hills Road, the steep hillside was carved out into a ski slope with a concrete base with plastic tiles with needles on them affixed to the base. Though the oddity got some wide coverage, including in Sports Illustrated, during 1966, it only lasted a season.
A Carbon Canyon Country Club followed and operated in the late Sixties before "The Purple Haze" came on to the scene for a few years around the early Seventies. Klavins then maintained the existing structures for residential uses over many years until he passed in 2017.
Those buildings, however, predated all of these variations and before Klavins' purchase. For thirty years, the site was the Camp Kinder Ring, operated by the Arbeter Ring of the Workmen's Circle, a left-leaning Jewish organization that sill exists in Los Angeles. Established in 1928, the facility was solely for children in its early years, though it became an all-ages camp later.
By 1958, with changes in the organization and its community, as well as unreliable water sources in the Canyon, the Workmen's Circle sold the property. A devastating fire broke out shortly thereafter and ravaged much of the property. Klavins then acquired the section where many of the remaining structures from the Camp Kinder Ring period and then reused by the various clubs during the 1960s remain today—though for how much longer remains to be seen.
This blog has many posts related to the history of the property and these can be viewed by putting in the several names (Camp Kinder Ring, El Circulo, Ski Villa, etc.) into the search bar at the right of the main page.
Napoles' article also mentioned the red-tagged apartments at the east end of Sleepy Hollow, south of Carbon Canyon Road. The eight units are situated where the was once a store along the road and a two-story home for the family remains at the rear of the parcel. In the 1970s, the property was owned by the Norris family and, in the 1990s, Fred Gentry operated the store there.
The place were shuttered in January because of health and safety code violations and the owner retained an architect to revamp the units to current standards. Work was fairly consistent for a period, though it now seems very sporadic. There was no response from the owner or the City of Chino Hills on requests by the paper for updates.
Finally, another historic structure was featured in the piece. What was last operated as the Canyon Market and before that was a store and gas station under many names over the decades, including Party House Liquor #2 (the first was on Chino Hills Parkway at Pipeline Avenue until recently), Ichabod's and Joe Tatar's, has been purchased the City of Chino Hills.
The store property is on a little over an acre, while an adjacent undeveloped three-acre tract is already owned by the City along Carbon [Canyon] Creek. Long advocated by council member Ray Marquez, the parcel is being considered for relocation of the Sleepy Hollow Community Center, which has been on a former community center and volunteer fire house off Rosemary Lane to the east for over fifteen years, or for other community uses. Marquez stated that community meetings will be held to solicit input on the property's future.
Today's edition of the Champion contains the news that a man's body was found in Carbon [Canyon] Creek adjacent to the former liquor store site. A call was made Thursday afternoon and the incident was obviously still under investigation by press time. The Chino Hills Police Department is asking for anyone with information to call 909.364.2000. Notably, this is not the first time bodies have been found in that area.
In the "Community News" section is a reader-submitted photo of a damaged guardrail on the S-curve east of the summit along Carbon Canyon Road with the caption observing that this section, recently replaced during the ongoing rehabilitation project for State Route 142, has been hit twice recently by eastbound drivers speeding downhill and crossing the westbound lane before crushing the rail.
While this blog used to be very active in reporting such incidents, social media platforms of various types tend to be faster in posting and sharing this information, so less has been done here in noting these activities. There, however, have been more incidents than just this one in recent weeks, including on the Chino Hills side:
- A 50mph sign flattened on the highway east of Old Carbon Canyon Road.
- More signs damaged on the S-curve, including at the summit and the first curve just east of it.
- A section of fence at a private home in Sleepy Hollow demolished (this property has had this happen several times over the years.)
And, on the Brea portion:
- A guardrail end crushed by a wastbound driver who crossed the eastbound lane to hit that object and another guardrail "nudged" near the San Bernardino County line in the same direction.
- Two advisory speed signs just east of the Chino Hills State Park Discovery Center,
- A car that plowed through the recently erected chainlink fence at the former La Vida Mineral Springs property.
- Two spots where eastbound vehicles skidded off the road and hit the embankment on the south side of the highway leaving undercarriage pieces and other debris.
There are undoubtedly more incidents and, as has been noted here many times over eleven years, dangerous driving is a frequent occurrence, especially weekend evenings. Moreover, CalTrans is deliberating on whether to ban trucks over 50-feet in length on the highway. Twice in October, school buses had to either stop or pull over where there is virtually no shoulder, to make way for big rigs that crossed the yellow divider and into the opposing lane to try and negotiate the S-curve.
While many needed improvements have been made in the Carbon Canyon Road rehabilitation project to try and improve safety, the smashing of guardrails and signs, as well as some private property, and continuing reckless driving are, once again, reminders that a consistent, on-going patrol presence is needed if any expectation of reducing dangerous driving is to be met.
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