Sleepy Hollow Apartments Red-Tagged by Chino Hills

As reported in today's Champion by Marianne Napoles, a complex of apartments at the east end of Sleepy Hollow were red-tagged by the City of Chino Hills at the end of January and the residents of the eight units evicted.

The declaration by the city that the property was unsafe came because of a lawsuit filed by an unnamed tenant against landlord Leonard Aten, who has apparently owned the site since 2007. The suit concerned a fight over repairs to a unit requested by the tenant and the attorney for the plaintiff then contacted the City. Residents were notified by letter at the beginning of this month from the City's assistant attorney.

In that document, tenants were informed that Aten was required to provide them relocation assistance in events in which evictions are caused by orders like the one the City made because of the health and safety of residents.  Napoles talked to three of the tenants, who told her there was no such assistance offered by Aten.

Aten hired a Chino-based architect to help make the units code-compliant and Shiv Talwar told Napoles that he met with the owner and city officials so that plans could be drawn up to prepare for work that would "rectify the situation."  Specifically, Talwar said that electrical service was substandard and "the plumbing was bootlegged."  Bedroom lack "escape windows," and he noted property line issues, which is a problem throughout Sleepy Hollow because of inaccurate surveying.

Council member and Carbon Canyon resident Ray Marquez, who district includes Sleepy Hollow, told the paper he was surprised by the news and told Napoles he was concerned for the residents and would do what could to assist them.

The property's history goes back to at least 1930, when David Tidwell and his family lived on the site and operated a store as part of what was called "Tidwell Oaks."  The Tidwells were there into the 1940s and perhaps later.  It was said later to have included a bar and a brothel and, in the 1990s, was again a store operated by Fred Gentry.  Online records indicate he sold the property in 2007 and the buyer appears to have been Aten.

Aten tried to sell the property a few years ago, asking $1 million, but there were no takers at such a price and the listing was pulled.  When the realtor was contacted, he said that repairs were badly needed, but the owner did not want to make them, adding that the fleas were so big they "could bark." 

Napoles talked to a few of the residents, including longtime tenants of thirty or more years, one of which has terminal cancer and another having a spinal cord injury.  They talked of the shock of a sudden eviction and the difficulty in leaving.  Mail couldn't be delivered, they reported, because Aten removed the eight mailboxes that were at the front of the old store. 

Brad Walrath, a 35-year resident who has cancer, told Napoles he was "going from house to house, but it's hard to live with someone else when you're dying."  Emma Happ stated that "we were treated like criminals . . . as if we were the public nuisance."  Tom Warner, who lived there 30 years, said he was "emotionally distraught" and "like a zombie in total shock."  The latter two paid $800 and $415 a month in rent, respectively, an indication of the conditions at the property.

Sleepy Hollow Landmark Purchased by City of Chino Hills

Championed by Chino Hills council member Ray Marquez, a longtime resident of Carbon Canyon, the historic liquor store property in Sleepy Hollow on Carbon Canyon Road has been acquired by the City.

As reported in this weekend's Champion, the store and lot, comprising just over an acre, were purchased for $600,000 with almost 30% of the price considered a charitable donation to the City by longtime owner Gus Fedail.  This means that the City effectively pays $425,000.  The last business to operate there, the Canyon Market, closed in 2012. 

Before that it was Party House #2 (the main Party House is on Chino Hills Parkway and Pipeline Avenue), Joe Tater's restaurant and tavern, Ichabod's restaurant and store, and others, including a gas station.  One of the concerns about acquiring the property was whether the old gas tanks were still present, but it was learned they were removed long ago.  The future of the aging structure is to be discussed.

Council member Marquez has long advocated acquiring the store property for a new community center, replacing the current one further east and on the south side of Carbon Canyon Road and where a former volunteer fire house and community center was located for decades. 

Noting that parking at the current Sleepy Hollow Community Center is very limited, Marquez said that he'd like to see recreational, social, and nature programs, adding that the City owns 3 acres just to the east along Carbon [Canyon] Creek, where improvements, such as a nature trail, could be made. 

In addition, he has wanted to improve the property as a bus stop to improve access and safety, as Chino Valley Unified School District's buses use adjacent Oak Way Lane as the furthest west stop in the Canyon, but have to make difficult roundabout turns there.

In fact, from the founding of Sleepy Hollow in 1923, that section along the creek had a swimming pool along with a well and served as an outdoor gathering place for early residents and property owners, many of whom had weekend cabins when the community was a rural get-away.

Council member Marquez is hoping to hold community meetings soon to discuss the future of the building and property, so stay tuned for future developments!

Memorial Flags on Carbon Canyon Road S-Curve in Chino Hills

Several years ago I met Sarah Vanderpool at a Carbon Canyon event and we talked about her family's many years of living in the Canyon, specifically on the hillside about the S-curve along Carbon Canyon Road on the Chino Hills side.

In recent years, flags have been appearing along a slope at the central section of the S-curve in between Sarah's house and that of her brother.  There have been both white flags and American flags place there and today's Orange County Register has a very interesting article about  Sarah and the reason she puts these flags out.

She does this to honor fallen American soldiers with the most recent flag placement, the ninth, being in honor of a 24-year old Pennsylvania, Sgt. Jason McClary, who was killed by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in December.

Sarah has strong connections to the military, dating back to an ancestor who fought in the Civil War and also including her father, who a fighter pilot; her son, who is in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division; her daughter, who was injured in training operations; and her daughter's husband, currently deployed in Honduras as a Black Hawk helicopter pilot.

So, as commuters ply the route up and down the S-curve, more of them hopefully will know why Sarah places these flags and appreciate the effort she has made to honor our troops.

State Senate Bill Introduced to Expand Chino Hills State Park in Carbon Canyon

As reported by the Orange County Register, State Senator Ling-Ling Chang, who was elected to replace the recalled Josh Newman, proposed a bill on 20 February that would "require the {State Parks] department to seek opportunities for acquiring land to expand open space for Chino Hills State Park," to quote the wording of her Senate Bill 404.

There are four properties targeted for acquisition and inclusion in the park, including the Lamb and Eastbridge parcels in south Chino Hills at the east end of the park and comprising 1,600 acres.  The others are immediately adjacent to Carbon Canyon and include an 11-acre tract and the 369-acre parcel that was slated for 162 houses as the Madrona development.

This latter, approved by the Brea City Council despite the proposal being counter to the city's own ordinances, was rejected by the Orange County Superior Court after a suit was filed by Hills for Everyone, which was a major player in establishing the state park in the early 1980s, and partners.  The lower court's ruling was upheld by a state appellate court and the California Supreme Court.

If everything works out, just south of 2,000 acres would be added to the park, which would be about a 14% increase in the size of the 14,000 acres now within it.  Chang was quoted as saying:

I believe the best use of this land is to keep it open and accessible to the community.  Southern California is so heavily urbanized, it becomes almost impossible to find an area to provide tranquility, solitude and relief from hectic urban life.

The Chino Hills tracts, if purchased, would protect valuable ridgelines from intrusion to park visitors of houses, while the Brea parcels will facilitate wildlife movement between the park and Tonner Canyon to the north.

Speaking of Tonner Canyon, the synchronicity of what might transpire under Senator Chang's legislation and the recent news of an agreement by City of Industry, Chino Hills and Diamond Bar to share ownership and management of the 2,500-acre Tres Hermanos Ranch in Tonner Canyon is notable.

Claire Schlotterbeck, executive director of Hills for Everyone and who had a significant role in the establishment of the state park along with State Senator Ross Johnson, a Republican, who died recently, told the paper "we finally have willing sellers.  We've been waiting 40 years."

The cost of acquisition could easily go into the tens of millions of dollars, given that prices per acre can be up to about $10,000, but there is support for the plan in Brea and Chino Hills.  So, as news develops, updates will be made here.

Heirs Apparently Presentation on Merced and Francisca Williams in Ontario

Well, it rained pretty hard not long before tonight's "Heirs Apparently: The Tumultuous Lives of Francisca and Merced Williams" talk at Ontario's Ovitt Family Community Library, but about 40 people came out to hear the presentation.

With a very nice flyer created by library staff to promote the event, the first in a series on local history that the institution is hosting, and attendance from representatives of historical societies and museums in La Verne, Ontario, Pomona, Rancho Cucamonga (the Rains House), and Brea (Olinda Oil Museum), we had a very interested crowd who had lots of questions afterward.

The details of the stories of the Williams sisters, who as teens inherited over 35,000 acres comprising the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino, which extended well into Carbon Canyon, and their domineering husbands, John Rains and Robert Carlisle, have been covered pretty extensively on this blog.

Rains took his wife's half-share of Chino and sold it quickly to the Carlisles to buy Rancho Cucamonga and then poured large sums to improve and develop it, including the building of the house that is a historic site today.  He also invested in other real estate in San Diego County and Los Angeles, though the economic conditions of the region were in a downward turn.

Desperate to save the situation, he borrowed large amounts of money and was heading to Los Angeles for more when he was killed in what is now San Dimas.  Carlisle then secured power of attorney for Merced Rains and was accused of mismanagement and fraud and was removed from that position.

Embittered, he attacked Andrew Jackson King, the new attorney-in-fact, at the Los Angeles hotel Rains once owned and then was involved in a shootout the next day with King's brothers that left one of the latter and Carlisle dead in an epic gunbattle long remembered in the city.  Left behind after both killings were the young widows, whose fortunes diverged wildly afterward.

The 1850 federal census, taken in early 1851 because of California's admission to the Union in September 1850, and showing the Isaac Williams household at Rancho Santa Ana del Chino, including his daughters Maria [Merced[ and Francisca.

Merced Rains was forced to leave Cucamonga when it was foreclosed upon, with little or nothing left of her inheritance, married twice more, and spent much of her later years with a daughter from Rains and her husband, Henry Gage, who went on to be governor of California.  She died in 1907.

Francisca Carlisle, who also remarried twice, the second time to a much-younger man which scandalized her family, kept the Chino ranch for another fifteen years, married a wealthy doctor and Los Angeles mayor, and retained a substantial fortune for the rest of her long life, which ended in the late 1920s.

It's pretty hard to find much information about women in the 19th century generally, much less Latinas in greater Los Angeles.  The stories of Merced and Francisca Williams are a rare exception and it was a lot of fun to share them tonight with an appreciative and engaged audience.

David Purington Reminiscences of Sleepy Hollow, Part Four

Today's entry is the fourth part of a series focusing on the typed (that is, with a typewriter) recollections, probably from the late 1970s or early 1980s, of David Purington, whose father, Cleve, and partners created Sleepy Hollow in 1923 when greater Los Angeles was at the peak of another of its many real estate booms.  Thanks to my neighbors who loaned these documents and other material relating to Sleepy Hollow so they could be uploaded here!

As mentioned previously in this series and elsewhere, Cleve Purington died in 1927, but his widow and family continued to manage the subdivision and live in the community for decades.  So, the narrative begins with David remembering that he "was about eight years old when my father was developing a subdivision in 1927 that was to be Lookout Ridge in Carbon Canyon which is located near Yorba Linda, California."  He went on to note that the tract "was the last to be developed out of eighty acres he had purchased in 1921." 

While the first development was Sleepy Hollow, which "was [a] handy place to have a summer cabin," the new one, Lookout Ridge, was situated on the upper slopes of the hills at the north side of the area and was given that name "because this remaining parcel consisted of a prometory [promontory] from which one could see in both direction[s] up and down the lenght [sic] of Carbon Canyon."  In addition, the rest of the land "consists of a bowl that overlooks a neighboring canyon," this probably being Lion's Canyon to the west and north where the St. Joseph's Hill of Hope religious compound is.

In what seems to be universal for almost any secluded hill location, Purington added, "it has been said that Muerietta, the early California hold-up man used the ridge as a 'lookout point.'  It is also said that he camped by the spring when he was in this area."  Joaquin Murrieta is a shadowy figure in the Gold Rush period of California, said to be the head of a large gang of desperadoes who committed robberies and other crimes throughout the state. 

At times, there were several simultaneous reports of him in varying areas of California, this reflecting the heightened state of tension many residents felt.  In 1853, it was said that Murrieta was killed and his decapitated head pickled in a jar for identification--this jar was reportedly displayed until it was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

Whether Murrieta was ever in Carbon Canyon can't be documented, though it is certainly possible, although in nearby Soquel Canyon, just to the south, a hunted murderer, Felipe Alvitre, holed up until he was discovered by Ygnacio Palomares, a rancher from what became Pomona looking for stray animals.  This was in late 1854, a year after Murrieta's death, so maybe these stories were conflated?

In any case, Purington recorded that his father "put a well down above where the spring trickled out of the side of the hill which was to be the water-supply for the Lookout Ridge tract" and that "the well tested out satisfactorily."  Moreover, "since the spring water was very soft and good tasting," Purington's father installed a concrete catchment basin in the hillside and had a 1-inch pipe lead from that down the hill.

He continued

since the water from the wells the supplied the Sleepy Hollow tracts was very hard water he had the pipe run down the hillside to the large oak tree located near Joe Tater's restaurant in Sleepy Hollow where it ran into a small tank from which people could fill five gallon bottles for drinking water.

At the Carbon Canyon talk given at the Yorba Linda Library a month ago, Joe Tater and his wife attended and talked a little with some of those in attendance about the decade or so from 1970 to 1980 when they owned the restaurant where the Party House Liquor Store building is today.   The oak tree likely still stands in the grove behind the structure.

Purington added that he was drawn to the work being done to build the roads that crawled up the steep hillside, done with mules, "fresnos" or early graders, and "lots of pick and shovel work."  He added that the location of the spring was shaded by oaks "and was a very cool and relaxing spot" for his family and the workers.

Purington was away in the service during the Second World War and returned to Sleepy Hollow to a home he had built before he left.  He, his wife Leone, and their four children lived there and, in 1954, he purchased the land where the spring and well were situated.  The purpose, he wrote, was as a backup water supply for seven acres he owned "over the hill from the spring."  Unfortunately, he built a home there that burned just the following year.  This led him to sell all of that land, except for where the spring was (for obvious reasons of future value and use) and move to Hawaii.

Twenty years passed and Purington decided to return and develop the slightly more than one acre he retained around the spring.  He christened the property Hana Ranch, after a granddaughter who was born in Maui.  What struck him, though, was that "the new piece of land I was to develop around the spring was not the same portion of the mountain side I had originally spent considerable time walking over and planning!"  Why was not stated—perhaps someone had done grading on his land illegally?

In any case, Purington said he saw other projects in the area and decided to maintain "the topography as much as possible" with as little grading as he could do.  His home was selected on the highest portion with the bowl mentioned above at the rear, so he could maximize sun exposure (possibly using solar power), winter warmth, summer breezes, and have a windmill for water.  With a permit secured and power brought to the property, it was time to address obtaining the water.

The natural flow from the spring wasn't enough, so Purington uncovered the old well his father dug fifty years before and which had a ten-foot long redwood shaft. After clearing it out, he acquired a old pump to start with and then a submersible with a timer because "the water is in a small basin and although the supply [is] adequate the recharge is slow."  His plan at the time of writing was to bore a hole up to fifty feet in and draw water out by gravity flow using a windmill.

Purington added that he had "two lady friends I stayed with alternately [who] needed more serious commitments that I was not prepared to make" so he moved to his property staying in a small building he'd put there before he went to Hawaii.  A daughter joined him there and he added another small structure as "an office and general controll [sic] center for the ranch establishment."

In spring 1977, Purington began his house below the well site, but, because there was no road for ready access, concrete for the foundation was mixed above and transported by chute down below.  Delays ensued because of repairs to the temporary buildings being used and for other reasons.  He also noted that the original water tank from the 1920s for the Lookout Ridge tract was still on the site, though it was pushed down the hill to the well site and had many bullet holes.  He hoped it could either be repaired and used for water storage or, with a door cut into it, as a storage building, so it was lowered to a spot below the well for gravity feeding of water.

He mentioned the idea of further digging out and leveling an area for a home for his daughter and "a pool or some body of water we can jump into either a hot or cold day depending how successful we are with solar water heating."  Later, he was able to get an access road cut directly to the house site.  By the time fall came, he decided to hold off completing the framing the house until the following spring because of winter weather.  So Purington spent some time with family and friends in Hawaii, returning to the canyon in mid-January 1978.

Purington noted that it rained basically from that point all the way through mid-April and wrote "I am sure in the future this period will be known as the, 'Rains of 1978.'"  In fact, that winter was one of the three wettest since official records for the region were started a century before and about the same as 2004-05.  Unfortunately, the narrative ends at the fifth page where Purington talked about erosion of the soil around his house because of the torrents of rainfall and the story leaves us, like his house-in-progress, on a cliff-hanger!

Check back periodically for part five of the Purington reminiscences.