Where an urban cowboy can still saddle up for a ride down memory lane

Time was when children rode bareback from the Palos Verdes Stables to Malaga Cove Plaza, hitched their mounts to an old tree and bought a Boston cream pie at Moore’s Market for a nickel. Horseback riders went to Torrance Beach along trails lined with eucalyptus trees.

A bit of history is corralled at the rustic stables, which were built in the early 1920s before Palos Verdes Estates became a city.

The stables, where an urban cowboy can still saddle up for a ride down memory lane, are owned and operated by the city. It is the only facility in the South Bay where the public can rent horses, officials said. Neighboring Rolling Hills Estates operates a stable offering boarding space and a lesson program, but no public riding.

Although the beach and plaza are closed to horseback riders these days, the tree-lined trails still can accommodate a string of horses, and the stables offer one- and two-hour trail rides to the public on weekends.

Jeanette Warren, who has managed the stables since 1983, said all trail rides are led by a guide, and prospective riders are reminded to leave their spurs at home. For safety reasons, the ride is a leisurely, safe walk.

The stable has something to offer riders of all ages and ability, Warren said, including private and group lessons and birthday party programs.

And for the non-horse crowd, the stables impart a heady dose of pastoral charm thought to have been paved over long ago. Visitors are welcome to walk around, pet the horses and watch riders take lessons.

Although the stables today are a point of pride to the community, they were in poor repair and destined for demolition when Warren assumed management, said Palos Verdes City Councilman Ronald Florance, who serves as council liaison to the stables. A series of lessees had run them down, he said.

“There were safety problems, fire liability, the horses were in poor health. It came within a hair’s breadth of nonexistence,” Florance said, remembering how the council considered doing away with the stables.

“It was like a barn raising,” Florance said. “We told (stable users) that it either had to be brought up to some standard of safety and sanitary condition, or we would have to bulldoze it down. They rallied significantly.”

“It’s been one of the most successful volunteer efforts the city has had,” said Patt Maiolo, a city resident since 1947 who rode at the stables as a child. Maiolo, whose teen-aged daughter boards a horse at the stables, was one of the leaders in the effort to persuade the city to assume stable management.

“We now have a viable entity,” Florance said. “It’s still not a Class 1 stable at this point, but it’s certainly a significant advancement from where it was. It would have been too bad to throw away that history, and once it was torn down, it wouldn’t have come back.”

Florance predicts that in five years the facility “will really be one of the stylish stables around.”

The stables are on the brink of a $500,000 improvement project, said City Manager Gordon Siebert. The project, scheduled to begin this spring, will be completed in three phases, the first of which is to rebuild the old white livery barn where city-owned horses are kept.

“It’s probably the oldest building in the city,” Florance said.

Phase 2 will renovate the riding rings and storage areas, and Phase 3 will rebuild the “brown barn,” where privately owned horses are boarded.

Siebert said that although the stables are financially secure: “We don’t operate it to make a profit. We operate it to pay its own way and to make improvements.” He said that since the city has taken over the management, operating revenues have exceeded expenditures.

Stable regulars, such as Lynn DeVan, a Lomita resident who grew up in Palos Verdes Estates, are eager for the renovation to begin.

“I can hardly wait,” said DeVan, who has boarded horses there since the early 1960s. “We’ve been waiting for this for a long time. I saw some of the newer stalls being built, but horses are tough on wood (they chew it, kick it and rub against it, she said), and now we’re anxiously awaiting the renovation.”

DeVan said she believes the stables are a social asset to South Bay teen-agers with an interest in horses.

“I spent my entire childhood there and now most of my adult life,” said DeVan, who is in her late 30s and remembers when most of the Palos Verdes Peninsula was flower fields. “I think it’s a good place to grow up. Horses teach a responsibility that doesn’t come with a dog or a cat.”

DeVan’s longtime friend from the stable, Cathy Soverns, agrees. “It was good for me,” said the 36-year-old Torrance resident who has also boarded horses at the stables for more than 20 years. “It gave me a place to go, something to do without hanging around at some shopping center. It’s not like a tennis racket you can stick away in some closet. You have to go up there and take care of your horse. I think it’s a good, clean atmosphere.”

What: Palos Verdes Stables. Where: 4057 Via Opata, Palos Verdes Estates. Hours: Open daily, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Cost: One-hour ride (leaving at 12:30, 2 and 3:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday only), $12; two-hour ride, departing at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, $20. Reservations, taken on Fridays, are recommended. Information: (213) 378-3527.