Tycoon Tries Again, Plans Scaled-Down Golf Course

Kagehisa Toyama, the Japanese broadcasting tycoon whose dream of a luxury golf club in the Ojai Valley was thwarted by county zoning rules, is about to tee off again.

The spry, 70-year-old millionaire, owner of his country’s largest radio station, said in an interview last week that he has scaled down his project and will resubmit plans that call only for an 18-hole golf course and a modest clubhouse.

His unsuccessful effort last year to include a large meeting hall and two dozen private bungalows on the grounds was the work of misguided advisers who did not appreciate his singular passion to create a first-class fairway, he said.

“I’m only interested in a golf club, not an international conference center,” he said through an interpreter. “Golf is a game of the heart . . . an approach to God. And my final goal in life, my dream, is to build a perfect golf course in the United States.”

Scenic Mountainside

The 2,000 acres of scenic mountainside land owned by Toyama’s Farmont Corp. near Rancho Matilija are zoned for open space, a condition that derailed his original proposal for a 50,000-square-foot meeting hall and overnight accommodations.

But a golf course and a clubhouse not exceeding 20,000 square feet could be permitted on a portion of the property under existing zoning regulations provided that the Board of Supervisors approves a special permit, county planning officials said.

“A golf course with a single building is conditionally permitted in an open-space zone,” said Tom Berg, director of the county Resource Management Agency. “That doesn’t mean it will be automatically approved. But they certainly have the right to apply.”

Toyama, in an interview that spanned several hours and moved from a 15th-floor conference room at a downtown Los Angeles hotel to a bustling Little Tokyo sushi bar, explained that he has been enamored of golf for more than 30 years.

Toyama, a frequent competitor, described the sport as part religion and part philosophy, a repository of manners and etiquette, a “gentleman’s game” in which “there is complete harmony.”

“I say this because there are no judges to enforce the rules. It’s your heart that judges you on how you play the game,” Toyama said. Besides owning Radio Nippon, he has taught political science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and has written a booklet of anti-Communist ruminations called “Solidarity of Freedom: God and Satan.”

Such love affairs with golf have become legendary in Japan, which is dotted with driving ranges, including a famous triple-tiered facility that crowns downtown Tokyo. One Japanese religious group known as the Church of Perfect Liberty--which has its North American headquarters in Glendale--owns several golf courses and advocates the sport as a means of realizing its primary tenet of “life as art.”

But, as Toyama lamented, there are few opportunities for building a world-class course in Japan, where land is expensive, the climate sometimes frigid and the geography rugged. In his search for the ideal setting, he was drawn several years ago to California, where he visited more than 30 potential sites from Newport Beach to San Francisco.

It was only when he set eyes on the Ojai Valley that he knew he had found a spot so idyllic, as he says in his informational brochure, that his Farmont Golf Club would be like a “fantastic garden.”

He said he paid $9 million for the land, including 230 acres for the course and 1,800 acres to serve as a natural buffer. Members, who would pay an initiation fee of $30,000 to $50,000, would total no more than 300 and would probably be drawn from the ranks of elite international businessmen and diplomats.

Live on Site

Eventually, Toyama said, he would like to build his personal residence on the grounds and live his final years there with his wife.

“I want to die in Ojai,” he said. “I want to die at the Farmont Golf Club.”

Before he can do that, however, there will be more than a few county officials and local environmentalists wanting to make sure that the project does little to alter its pristine surroundings.

The original plan, when it included a conference facility, was rejected by county supervisors in 1987 as inappropriate for an open- space zone. But the board, by a 3-2 vote, later directed the planning staff to prepare a report that would seek to determine whether some levels of development might be acceptable in such areas.

Although the report concluded that a conference center could be compatible with preservation of open land if the intensity of use were kept low, supervisors rejected the idea as opening the door to far more development than they wished to see.

By scaling the project down to just a golf course and a clubhouse, Toyama can bypass those hurdles. But the plan would still be subject to an environmental impact review and approval of county supervisors, who would need to deem the project compatible with its surroundings.

Questions Raised

“There would be issues that would have to be addressed, issues that may or may not be obstacles,” said Berg. He added that questions would probably be raised about the project’s potential impact on traffic, air quality and water supplies.

Russ Baggerly, a leader of the Ventura County Environmental Coalition, also expressed concern. “We’re glad to hear that it’s been scaled down,” said Baggerly, who lives in nearby Meiners Oaks. “However, the project will still be scrutinized.”

Lindsay F. Nielson, a Ventura attorney representing Toyama, said he is holding off on filing an application for the revised project until some of those issues can be informally discussed with county officials and environmentalists.

“All of the qualities which would enhance open space are possessed by a golf course,” Nielson said. “But we have to be really sensitive to the local population. We’re going to have to meet their concerns.”

As far as Toyama is concerned, though, there is no hurdle great enough to dampen his dream.

“Despite the problems I’ve been facing, I still feel I did the right thing in choosing the Ojai Valley for my golf club,” he said. “When I saw that area, I knew almost immediately this is it.”