Trouble on the Trail : Unwilling to Be a Vanishing Breed, Equestrians Lobby to Preserve Bridle Paths

The busy boulevard, perhaps a hundred yards away, seemed not to exist at all.

Thick underbrush and raspberries bordered the dusty trail, and water gurgled from underground springs.

It was a setting made for men and women on horseback, and the string of riders reveled in it one recent sunny morning, knowing that on the Palos Verdes Peninsula’s network of horse trails--some made for gentle walking and others rugged enough to challenge the most intrepid rider--it is possible to ride from the rustic neighborhoods of Rolling Hills Estates all the way over the crest of the Peninsula to the Portuguese Bend seashore.

As the group climbed the side of a canyon, a new colt scampered to the edge of a corral and let out a series of shrill whinnies, as if to ask, “Who are you?” A short distance beyond, the riders pulled up at a gently sloping mesa and gazed for miles across the Los Angeles Basin, past oil tanks in Torrance, the Redondo Beach coastline and the white haze hovering over the metropolis.

‘On the Edge of Life’

“It’s like being on the edge of life, like exploring Africa or going into outer space,” said Steve Deming, a commercial real estate broker who keeps horses in Rolling Hills Estates and is president of the Palos Verdes Peninsula Horsemens Assn.

Preservation of the intertwining horse trails is at the top of the association’s agenda. And the job has gotten tougher, thanks to an influx of new residents--especially in the past 10 years--who look to swimming pools, spas and tennis courts for recreation, not horses.

Many of these relative newcomers object to having to live next to horse trails, which they equate with with dust, flies and manure. Some developers object to having to set aside land for trails.

Spurred by fears that horse owners may some day have few places to ride outside the solidly equestrian cities of Rolling Hills and Rolling Hills Estates, the association has been aggressively seeking to obtain official easements for trails that exist through use but whose legal status could be challenged. Most of these trails are in Rancho Palos Verdes, which has more new-home developments than the other cities and the most public opposition to horses.

22-Mile Loop Trail

In addition, an equestrian committee made up of council members and other officials from the four Peninsula cities is seeking political and community support for a 22-mile loop trail through all the Peninsula cities. According to proponents, 83% of the trail is in use, but the rest would require development of new trails utilizing such things as fire roads and easements set aside for other purposes, including streets that never were put in.

But some officials say the plan is a long shot because it would introduce horses into new areas.

Equestrians say that the opportunity to keep and ride their animals in a spectacular setting is what drew them to the Peninsula, which in many way maintains a rural atmosphere in spite of intense residential development in recent years. And, they say, it is a way of life that has become more precious now that the Peninsula has become virtually the only riding country in the South Bay.

“It’s a vanishing way of life,” said Deming. “You used to be able to ride in Torrance and Lomita, and now you can’t.”

No Trails in Lomita

Torrance outlawed horsekeeping several years ago. While some horses are still kept privately on large agricultural lots in Lomita, the city has no bridle trails and riders use the streets and--though it is illegal--the sidewalks as well.

“Once in a while, you’ll see someone ride by, a 13- or 14-year-old girl usually,” said Lomita Mayor Hal Hall.

Carson has one commercial boarding stable near the junction of the Harbor and Artesia freeways.

No one seems to know how many horses or horse owners there are on the Peninsula. Rolling Hills Estates is the only city that takes a horse census, and the number was 1,070 last December.

Non-equestrian residents say they do not want to drive horses off the Peninsula, but don’t want them in their neighborhoods.

The dispute over what is or what should be horse territory has produced some abrasive horse vs. man encounters, most noticeably in the Crest Road-Crenshaw Boulevard area of Rancho Palos Verdes, where a push to protect a horse trail has brought horse owners into conflict with residents in developments where the only horses are on television.

‘Not Welcome’

“Horse owners do not understand that they are not welcome in the neighborhood,” said Ray Mathys, a resident of the Mesa Palos Verdes development, where there was strong opposition last year to the designation of a horse trail along Crest Road. “A number of people in this area located here because it was not a horse community.” The issue is still unresolved.

“The Peninsula is becoming less of a horse area and there appears to be less and less interest in maintaining horses,” said Don J. Owen, senior vice president of Cayman Development Co., which has built some 700 homes and town homes on the Peninsula since the late 1960s.

One gauge of this change, he said, is The Ranch, an equestrian-oriented community Cayman built in Rolling Hills Estates near the Crest Road boundary with Rancho Palos Verdes in 1978. Although 103 lots designed for horsekeeping were put into the development, not a single resident has ever kept a horse there.

“We were quite surprised to find that horse people did not buy them,” Owen said. “We thought it was something the community wanted.”

Equestrians say horsekeepers did not buy at The Ranch because the lots are too small and oddly shaped.

Ordinance Passed

A few months ago, the Rolling Hills Estates City Council tangled with Ranch residents when it passed a horse preservation ordinance designed to ensure that officially designated equestrian property--75% to 80% of the city--is not developed in ways that preclude horsekeeping by present or future owners.

Some Ranch residents wanted to use their yards for swimming pools, but the council refused to exempt them from a requirement that 800 square feet be set aside for corral space.

“It is a violation of freedom of choice,” said Nadia Thorpe, who was president of The Ranch homeowner group for six years. “People are not moving here to keep horses.”

The Peninsula has many equestrian trails that are official in that they are protected by easements property owners have been required to grant. This is the case in Rolling Hills and Rolling Hills Estates, the two Peninsula cities where horsekeeping is most extensive and firmly woven into the fabric of community life. There are about 45 miles of such trails in those two cities.

However, other trails exist by virtue of having been ridden for many years without landowners objecting or closing them off. This is the case with most of the Rancho Palos Verdes trails, according to the horsemen’s association.

Horsekeeping Areas

Rancho Palos Verdes also has two zones where horses may be kept: Portuguese Bend--where an active landslide has kept the community rural and free from developer pressure--and an area bisected by Palos Verdes Drive East near the Rolling Hills Estates border.

(While there are riders and horse owners in Palos Verdes Estates, that city banned horsekeeping on private property in the early 1940s. The city does maintain a municipal stable, where about half of the 54 boarded horses belong to city residents, and there is a popular bridle path along Palos Verdes Drive North.)

With increasing Peninsula development, the so-called “prescriptive trails” that exist as a result of long-time use are the ones that are disputed and sometimes spark legal and planning battles between horse owners and residents.

Frequently, residents living near the trails insist that the trails are rarely ridden, something equestrians deny. Ann Lewin, an attorney and past president of the horsemens association, said these trails exist by virtue of “30 years of use.”

Homeowners Sued

The association has a lawsuit pending against James and Carleen Isom of Rancho Palos Verdes because they blocked access from several horse properties to the trails network by closing a trail across their property. Mrs. Isom said the trail “goes nowhere and does not connect to other trails” and that it was closed because of liability concerns.

The horse owners’ greatest fear is the loss of trails on a piecemeal basis to tract homes here, a fence or chain there.

This has led the association in recent years to push for protection of the trails network through easements, obtained link by link from property owners as land is developed. But it also has sparked resistance by non-equestrian neighbors.

Dave Alger, a resident in the Del Cerro neighborhood near Crest and Crenshaw in Rancho Palos Verdes, said he will fight a likely attempt to extend a trail along Crenshaw past the rear of his property, which he said would require removing the sidewalk. The trail is proposed on a city master plan of horse trails, bicycle paths and pedestrian walks.

Alger said there are no horses in the area and he contended that pressure for trails comes from a “very noisy, but small number” of horsekeepers.

Little Conflict Before

Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor Douglas Hinchliffe said there was little controversy over horses in the city until the association began asserting itself. When trails were informal, horses never bothered people, he said. But with the possibility that trails will be protected and “go on forever,” some residents are becoming bothered.

“To say there is now one segment for this horse to walk on seems to trigger a lot of reaction,” he said.

Officials and horse owners agree that prescriptive trails, no matter how long they have been used, are hard to preserve as people exercise private property rights.

A woman who calls herself simply Sunshine (“That’s my legal name”), who has ridden the Peninsula trails since she was a youngster and heads the association’s trails committee, said saving trails requires regular attendance at planning commission and city council meetings and speaking up about new development near trails.

“If there is a horse trail through here, you get it put in as a condition of the development,” she said.

Plan a Wish List

The Rancho Palos Verdes master trail plan calls for the city to obtain easements from developers to safeguard trails in appropriate areas, but it remains largely a wish list.

But even though the city and the association do not always agree on what is an appropriate trail, there has been some progress, according to officials and the horsemens association.

Palos Verdes Properties, which is planning to build 47 homes adjoining Forrestal Drive, was required to grant a trails easement as a condition of approval.

And there are plans to put a trail on public frontage along Crenshaw Boulevard in front of St. John Fisher Church in connection with the church’s expansion.

Cayman Development and the horsemen’s association are trying to work out a plan for a horse trail that would pass by Cayman’s Island View development on Crest Road.

Easements Criticized

The practice of securing easements has drawn criticism from some people, who say it is unfair to ask developers and other property owners to provide room for trails, and in some cases pay for their maintenance, when they are not riders and do not use them.

“It’s taking up your land and you’re spending money to do it,” said one developer of non-equestrian property who asked not to be identified.

“This is like saying, ‘I don’t hike, I don’t camp, so why should I maintain state, county or federal parks?’ ” said Deming. “These (trails) are recreational facilities that were in place prior to most of us even moving into the neighborhoods we live in.”

Not Introducing Horses

Said Rancho Palos Verdes Councilwoman Jacki Bacharach:

“The important point that everybody loses is that we’re not talking about introducing horses where they are not. We’re talking about preserving space where they are.”

Bacharach and other Rancho Palos Verdes officials said they do not want to extend equestrian areas in the city, and that is why they are pessimistic about the success of the proposed 22-mile loop trail, which is being supported by the Sierra Club as well as horse owners.

“It is an extension beyond anything we have envisioned,” said Councilman John McTaggart. He said equestrians “have pushed to get what they want . . . but they can’t have every square inch” of the Peninsula.