Malibou Lake Site : Residents Oppose 15 Luxury Homes

A group of Agoura residents are up in arms over a developer’s proposal to build luxury homes on the site of a dilapidated former lodge once frequented by such movie stars as Clark Gable and Carole Lombard.

Malibou Lakes resident Jack Slome and two partners have asked Los Angeles County for permission to build 15 homes and a stable on the 4.6-acre site of the Malibou Lakeside Lodge, a now-vacant celebrity vacation retreat built in the 1920s.

About 40 residents of the Malibou Lakeside Homeowners Assn. plan to take a chartered bus to downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday to petition the county Regional Planning Commission to deny Slome’s request that zoning for the site be changed from commercial to residential, a spokesman said Monday.

The homeowners oppose the proposed development, not because they are sentimental about the lodge, but because they contend the $350,000 homes Slome wants to build are too nice for their neighborhood.

Hodgepodge of Houses, Trees

The development would clash with the rural ambiance of the Malibou Lakeside neighborhood, said R. Ronald Roy, president of the association. The neighborhood is a hodgepodge of about 100 small houses and cabins surrounded by oak, pine, sycamore and acacia trees.

“No two houses here are alike,” Roy said. The houses Slome wants to build would be “highly stylized . . . ,” Roy said. They would be “15 versions of the same house.”

Slome said Monday that the houses he plans to build are to be rustic, Western-style homes made of cedar, “like John Wayne would live in.”

But association members also object to the density of the project.

“We don’t have any problem with six to eight homes being built, but 15 homes and all those horses and corrals is really jamming it in there,” said Tom Bates, association treasurer.

Residents also fear that the 30-horse stable would attract flies, cause odor and pollute nearby privately owned Malibou Lake. But Slome said strict sanitation measures would prevent odor and pollution problems.

The lodge site is a small triangle of land bounded by Crags and Paiute drives in county territory in Agoura.

Slome and his company, Malibou Lake Ranchos, purchased the land two years ago from a dozen current and former Malibou Lakes residents who had themselves purchased the property from other residents.

The lodge has been boarded up for years, and a tennis court and pool on the property are cracked and unused.

The association, which represents about 75 homeowners, recently tried to buy the property from Slome, but he was not interested in selling, Bates said.

Planning commissioners, who have approved a tentative tract map, toured the site Monday, but commission President Betty Fisher gave no indication of how the panel might vote.