Unmaking of an Oasis : After Shading Motel for 60 Years, Palm Grove Is Being Packed Up

It was always an oasis.

The shady palm grove once signaled a welcome rest stop to travelers motoring between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara on the sparsely developed Ventura Highway.

Later, it provided welcome visual relief to people being increasingly crowded by high-rises and other congested commercial development along what had become Ventura Boulevard.

But the oasis deserted Sherman Oaks on Wednesday.

Without ceremony, most of the stately grove of Phoenix canariensis and Cocos plumosa palms, which for generations had shaded Steele’s Motor Lodge, was picked up and moved to Orange County to decorate a pair of expensive new development projects.

The 60-year-old motel was closed about five months ago to make way for a Home Savings and Loan branch office at Ventura Boulevard and Colbath Avenue.

By Wednesday, the motel’s 38 units had been demolished and its kidney-shaped swimming pool in the center of the palm grove dug up. Leaf-bearing trees and other landscaping on the motel grounds were chopped down--except for the 20 palms.

Home Savings officials sold them to an Upland tree company. That firm in turn sold four to the Fashion Island development in Newport Beach and eight to the new Xerox Center in Santa Ana.

The other eight will be boxed up and saved--including two that will be kept in Sherman Oaks to decorate the new multimillion- dollar savings and loan office, officials said.

“It’s a very sad day,” said Mark Sperling, a carpet-company broker, whose office has overlooked the palm grove for 25 years. “How many trees do you have on Ventura Boulevard? I’m seeing my friends leave. But I’m glad to see they’re going to new homes and aren’t going to die.”

Bookkeeper Jo Morris said many in Sherman Oaks looked upon the Spanish-style motel as a little park. She said she had hoped that the site would eventually be turned into an inviting, palm-shaded shopping center with quiet shops and lush landscaping.

Jess Hoffman, who has lived a block from the motel site for 27 years, said it “always added a lot of charm to the community. My sister from Ohio stayed there for about a month 10 years ago and loved it. She painted several pictures of its grounds while she was here.”

Egbert Musick, who checked into the motel after he first moved to Sherman Oaks in 1967, said Los Angeles city officials should have purchased the property and turned it into a park.

“It was the only nice green space along the boulevard,” Musick said. “They could have found another place for the savings and loan. Once the trees are gone, the opportunity is lost.”

Wednesday’s tree removal angered Fred Kramer, a vice president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. He said Home Savings representatives had pledged to use the palms to landscape the new branch office.

“They said they were going to use them next to the sidewalk around the new building. I’m shocked that they’re removing them,” said Kramer--whose group is appealing a city decision to allow Home Savings to use a residentially zoned portion of the motel site as a customer parking lot.

Kramer said his family stayed in Steele’s Motor Lodge for a week when he first moved to Los Angeles in 1959.

“The place was old then. But it gave a lovely, rural feeling to a heavily urbanized community,” Kramer said. “It was a visual park for the entire community.”

Mary Trigg, a Home Savings vice president and spokeswoman, said the new three-story, 48,000- square-foot branch is expected to open in August, 1989. She said her firm does not disclose the costs of its projects.

Tree-mover Mark Barrett also declined Wednesday to reveal what the uprooted palms will sell for. Other experts pegged the going rate per tree at between $1,500 and $3,000, however.

Workers sheared away most of the palms’ fronds before a 50-ton crane gently lowered their 30,000-pound trunks onto flatbed trucks.

The oasis left a cloud of dust as it was hauled away.