Residents complained when schoolchildren repainted the cement statue. ‘People think it’s an Indian relic. They think it’s sacred. It’s crazy.’ : ‘Chief’s Pedestal Is Firm, History Aside

Count Jean de Strelecki meant well 47 years ago when he coaxed 20 of his Agoura neighbors into helping build the Santa Monica Mountains’ first memorial to its native Indians.

The Polish aristocrat designed a 14-foot-tall statue of an Indian chief and spent four months building it from cement that his neighbors toted in pails up a steep rock outcropping above Agoura’s tiny business district.

De Strelecki made one little mistake, however.

He modeled the statue after a Seminole Indian--not the Chumash who had inhabited the coastal mountains for 1,500 years.

Instead of depicting the lightly clad, friendly seed-gatherers who had lived in scattered canyons around the Agoura area, De Strelecki’s statue showed a stern-looking warrior wearing a heavy robe and a full feathered headdress.

“He’d heard about a resort near here called Seminole Hot Springs,” said 80-year-old Bob Boyd, one of those who carried the concrete for De Strelecki. “So he figured the Seminole Indians must have lived around here.” The Seminoles are a tribe native to the eastern United States.

Technique Described

De Strelecki, an immigrant who lived in Agoura during part of the 1930s and ‘40s, wrapped chicken wire around parts of old automobile axles and iron bedsprings to form the statue’s base. Then he applied the concrete, layer by layer.

“There are some little caves in the rocks where he put the statue and they’d found some small artifacts in there. He assumed it must have been the holy headquarters of the Indians. He had a lively imagination,” said Boyd, who still lives near the statue.

Several Chumash Indians were in the small crowd of townspeople that gathered for the statue’s unveiling on May 5, 1940, according to Boyd. When the cloth was pulled away, they politely kept their mouths shut.

The Indian statue has stood there ever since.

The community hasn’t stood still, though. The hillside behind the statue has been bulldozed into house pads and several large office buildings have been built below it. Instead of the population of 200 it had in 1940, it is now a city of 20,000.

Proposals Emerge

The mushrooming construction has prompted two proposals to the Agoura Hills City Council for the preservation of the statue.

The Old Agoura Design Committee, a city-appointed panel formed last year to help plan growth in the city’s original core, has suggested turning the statue area into a park.

It eventually could “include a visitor’s information center, sculpture garden and/or visitors information center for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy,” committee members concluded in November.

Quicker action is called for by a community activist, Tad T. Mattock. He wants the City Council to seize the statue, now owned by a developer, through condemnation proceedings. The council is scheduled to consider the idea May 13.

“It’s a symbol of the area. The community should maintain some of its character and recent history,” said Mattock, a Las Virgenes Municipal Water District director.

Mattock is urging that a nonprofit group be formed to help restore and strengthen the statue and build a safe public path to its base. He wants the city’s Parks and Recreation Department then to maintain the statue and light it at night.

Tells of Early Interest

Mattock, a Calabasas resident whose parents were born in Poland, said he became interested in De Strelecki’s monument because of their shared heritage.

But city officials are not sure they want to share in Mattock’s plan.

“I’d like an opinion whether it would be a maintenance problem and liability problem,” Mayor Vicky Leary said. “It will have to be really looked into. The residents of the city might not think it’s a good idea.”

Paul Williams, the city’s planning director, said eminent domain proceedings for the statue might be difficult.

“It’s hard for us to go in and make any improvements unless we were to acquire the property,” Williams said.

But Francis Allen, a Tarzana developer who owns the statue, said he is prepared to give it to the city when he draws up plans this summer for several homes on a two-acre hilltop site behind the concrete warrior.

“We don’t intend to destroy the statue,” Allen said. “The people in Agoura are very much attached to it. When I bought that property nine years ago, I didn’t realize I was getting such a famous thing.”

Serves as Landmark

The statue, known as Chief White Eagle, has become such a local landmark that some residents complained when schoolchildren repainted it about seven years ago, said Sally Schneider, a former member of the Las Virgenes Unified School District Board of Education.

“People think it’s an Indian relic. They think it’s sacred. It’s crazy,” Schneider said.

Genuine or not, it is the thought behind the statue that counts, according to Chumash tribal leader Posh Moyle.

De Strelecki’s heart was in the right place, even if he did get his Indian tribes mixed up, said Moyle, who has monitored Agoura-area construction sites for unearthed Indian artifacts for her tribe.

“It seems a shame that he used the wrong tribe to represent this area’s culture. But he meant no harm,” she said.

“Agoura Hills’ intentions are good. We appreciate the efforts they have put out to have an awareness of what the Chumash did use and occupy.”