After 15 Years, This Shipyard Becomes Just Another Yard

After at least 15 years of looking at what might be the biggest boat ever to dry-dock in the west San Fernando Valley, residents of a Reseda neighborhood prepared to say goodby Monday to the craft they adopted as a landmark.

According to Los Angeles building officials, Steve Schleder has been building the 16-foot-high, 50-foot-long boat in a lot next to his rented house at the corner of Geyser Avenue and busy Vanowen Street since at least 1975.

But under pressure from zoning laws, Schleder readied the boat Monday for a move from its makeshift port, drawing a crowd of about 30 neighbors and passers-by.

“My God, after all these years, he’s finally going to move it,” neighbor Richard Terry said as he watched Schleder and some workers fasten the boat to a flatbed trailer.

Schleder had nothing to say to reporters Monday. A spokesman for the El Segundo yacht transport company he hired said the boat would be moved sometime today to an undisclosed location. Schleder recently told Los Angeles officials that he was planning to move the boat to Ventura County.

The move takes place about a week before Schleder was to face the possibility of misdemeanor criminal charges for building the boat in an area zoned for residential use only, said Rick Usher of the city’s Building and Safety Department. A settlement hearing with a deputy city attorney is scheduled for next Monday, Usher said.

If the boat has been moved, the matter will become moot, he said.

Despite the city’s qualms about the zoning, those who stopped Monday at Schleder’s yard expressed overwhelming support for him.

“It becomes part of you when you’ve been here so long and see it,” neighbor Al Washburn said.

“How am I going to tell people how to get to my home?” neighbor Karen McConnell said. “I always used to say take a right at the boat or take a left at the boat, because it was such a landmark.”