R. Danielson, Park System Backer, Dies

Rancher and philanthropist Richard Ely Danielson Jr., whose 7,000-acre ranch became the cornerstone of the Santa Monica Mountains State Park System, has died of a heart attack in Santa Barbara. He was 75.

Danielson, who contributed his Rancho Sierra Vista to the state in 1983, died Tuesday.

His contribution of land to the state sparked the creation of Pt. Mugu State Park.

A native of Chicago, Danielson graduated from Yale and attended Cambridge University on a fellowship. He later earned a law degree from Boston University but practiced only a little more than a year before joining the Navy in 1941.

After service as a lieutenant commander in the Pacific in World War II, Danielson attended the California Agricultural College, now UC Davis, and bought Rancho Sierra Vista in 1947.

As a rancher, Danielson was a staunch advocate of water conservation and rural land preservation. He built a dam to conserve water to irrigate his lemon groves, a move that helped make him the largest individual lemon grower in California.

Services will be at 2 p.m. today at All Saints Episcopal Church, 504 N. Camden Dr., Beverly Hills.

He will be buried in a 5,500-acre Santa Monica Mountains wilderness preserve he also once owned. He sold the land to the state for half its market value on the condition that he and his immediate family could be buried there.

He is survived by his wife, Molly; a son, Lee; two daughters, Molly Dolle and Candida Burnap; a sister; a brother and 13 grandchildren.