Rural Retreat Wants to Stay That Way : Val Verde: Once a ‘kind of black Palm Springs,’ the community now is fully integrated. Its residents hope to preserve their life style despite growth.

Twenty years ago, Edwin Seth Brown chose the tiny Santa Clarita Valley town of Val Verde for his home. A manager and consultant in the entertainment industry, Brown has traveled the world since age 13 when he went on his first tour as a dancer.

“In all my travels, I never saw a spot that was a prettier place to live than Val Verde,” Brown said. “I also like its closeness to Los Angeles. With LAX, I can be in almost any part of the world within a 10-hour plane flight.”

Val Verde, population 2,000, is located about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. It is bounded roughly by Interstate 5, California 126, Hasley Canyon and San Martinez roads.

The community began in the mid-1920s as a rural summer retreat for blacks. Many notable entertainers such as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Della Rees and Billy Eckstein frequented the community in the 1930s and 1940s. They occasionally gave impromptu concerts at Val Verde Park.

“Val Verde was kind of a black Palm Springs back then,” said Dalton Celaius, a 16-year resident and now a realtor in nearby Valencia. “Blacks weren’t welcome in Palm Springs in the 1930s.”

Val Verde never became a famous resort like Palm Springs--no fancy hotels, golf courses or restaurants were ever built there, but the community provided a peaceful retreat for its black population.

The once all-black community became racially integrated in the late 1960s and early 1970s as migrant farm workers moved into the area. Brown estimates the current mix of the population as 60% Latino, 20% black and the remaining 20% Caucasian and Asian.

The Lucas Lopez family moved to Val Verde in 1971 because Lopez’s brother lived there. Lopez, a gardener, and his wife, Luisa, stayed there because they “like the peacefulness of the area,” Lopez said in Spanish. His son, Manny, interpreted.

The Lopezes rented for two years and then bought a two-bedroom house for $25,000. They live in that same house today with their son and daughter, Eva.

Brown also lives in a small two-bedroom farmhouse. It was built in 1923, and he updated it by rewiring the electrical system and replacing the galvanized plumbing with copper pipes.

And his house is the only one on the block. As the adjoining land went on the market, he bought it and his parcel now totals three acres.

Dalton Celaius moved to Val Verde in 1974. He made frequent business trips to San Francisco from Los Angeles, and it was during these drives that he discovered Val Verde.

“I saw this community as a green patch of land in what otherwise seemed to be desert,” he said. Val Verde literally means “green valley.” Val is an abbreviated version of the Spanish word for valley, valle.

Celaius lives with his 13-year-old son in a 1,400-square-foot home that was built in 1955 and which he has restored. His house sits on seven acres; on part of the land he raises Arabian horses.

He said the assets of the community include its remoteness and an active civic association that has prevented tract homes and developers from moving in.

The Val Verde Civic Assn., which has been in existence for more than 25 years, was originally called the Val Verde Advisory Council. The members are residents who are concerned with the quality of life in the community. Edwin Seth Brown is president of the association, a position he has held for the past three years.

The association wants to keep Val Verde rural.

“We’re concerned with the density of the population and the area’s growth, and the effect the growth will have on the school system,” Brown said. “We want to be sure the park is maintained. We’ll work with anyone and everyone who can make this a better place to live.”

One of the association’s recent efforts was a fund-raising campaign to keep the Samuel Dixon Family Health Center open. Brown said that many Santa Clarita Valley businesses made donations. In addition, a $120,000 grant was obtained from Los Angeles County to keep the clinic operating.

This year the civic association also resurrected an annual tradition of an Easter Sunrise Service and hosted a community pancake breakfast after the service. Proceeds from the breakfast went to the clinic.

The sunrise services started in Val Verde during the 1920s, but apathy set in during the late 1970s and the services stopped. This year about 1,000 people attended.

The assets of the community, Brown said, are the people who live there.

“This is an area that is concerned with community life, I would say our motto is ‘Know your neighbor,’ ” he said. “The people who live in Val Verde care about and take comfort in other people’s safety and well-being.

“If we want to maintain culture here, we need to remain active in the development of the community. We must fight to retain the rural ambience. Val Verde was a depressed and abandoned neighborhood when I first came here, but it’s rapidly upgrading.”

The improvement in the community is evident in the main housing option available for prospective residents--a new custom home. Lou Torres, a realtor with Century 21 Country Realtors in Val Verde said, “Most of the homes we’re selling are new homes built by independent contractors.”

Torres said each realtor in the office works with four or five contractors. They pre-sell each house before the construction is finished. Many of the buyers are coming from the San Fernando Valley.

“Three years ago, you could buy a two-story home with three bedrooms and two baths for $120,000 on a 5,000-square-foot lot,” he said. “Today the same house is selling for at least $185,000. Some of them range a little higher, but most are coming in under $200,000.”

Monica Barkley, a real estate broker in nearby Valencia, said there are fewer than 20 resale homes on the market in Val Verde now. They range in price from $99,500 to $206,000 and in size from 1,100 to 1,400 square feet.

One of the independent contractors building custom houses in Val Verde is Ricks Construction, run by Randy Ricks and his brother. Ricks Construction started building homes there two years.

Randy, his wife, Marlene, and their two children are renting in La Canada Flintridge until Ricks completes construction of their 2,500-square-foot home in Val Verde. He estimates the home will cost $300,000.

“We (chose) Val Verde because I’m from Idaho,” Ricks said. “If you know anything about Idaho, you know it’s country. Val Verde was the only place we could find that seemed like Idaho. It’s close enough to the city so people can commute, but it’s far enough away that you have some breathing room out here.”

Val Verde’s setting and its proximity to the reservoirs and ocean are another advantage, Ricks said. Fishing is less than 10 minutes away at Castaic Lake or Lake Piru, and 45 minutes away at the ocean in Ventura.

There are few rental properties in Val Verde. Torres said that occasionally a relatively new non-owner-occupied home is available for rent at $950 to $1,100 per month. There aren’t any condominium complexes nor apartment buildings in Val Verde either.

“Val Verde is a sleeper community,” Torres said. “We’re country out here, and we’d kind of like to keep it that way.”

A sleepy country town usually includes a country store, and Val Verde is no exception. In fact, the only retail establishment in town is the Val Verde General Store owned by Anne and Al Mutch, residents of nearby Castaic. They have owned the store for two years.

The Mutches like the country-like atmosphere of the community, the people and the low crime rate. But Anne did admit that their store gets burglarized several times a year--the booty usually being bottles of Thunderbird wine.

“Val Verde isn’t and hasn’t been a high-crime-rate area,” Lt. Marvin Dixon of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said. “In the past 10 years, the rate hasn’t gone up or down. We basically send a car out on an as-needed basis. Val Verde is a nice little community with a mixed population that is growing.”

Life in Val Verde isn’t crime-free, however. Recently, a 16-year-old girl was raped at the Boys and Girls Club and the clubhouse itself was burglarized and damaged.

“Any part of town can have an occasional random act of crime,” Dixon said. “These two incidents were not representative of the normal activity in the area and should be considered isolated incidents.”

Although still a small community, Val Verde’s population is growing. When asked if the growth in the population meant their business was also growing, Anne said: “No. Most of the white population regards us simply as a convenience store. We’re there if they need a pack of cigarettes or a gallon of milk. For the Hispanic population, however, we’re their bread and butter. We cash checks for them and even run credit accounts for some of the residents.”

As the population of Val Verde increases, residents such as Celaius are concerned.

“We’re losing the horse trails because of all the development,” he said. “I have a problem with trespassers. I don’t mind people hiking on my property, but they sometimes trample down the fences, and I worry about my animals.”

Room for his animals, and a private place for himself brought Bob Scott to Val Verde 36 years ago. Scott is 76 and retired. He acted in Westerns, worked as a stuntman, toured the country with trained animal acts and performed in rodeos.

Scott laughed as he recalled that he paid $200 for his Val Verde property in the mid-1950s. He built stables and barns and rented his horses to pleasure riders.

At one time he had more than 100 horses and other animals such as turkeys, llamas, bulls and snakes. “All kinds of people would come ride my horses--actors, baseball players and musicians,” Scott said. He sold his property in 1975 but still lives in Val Verde in a small trailer on a friend’s property.

Scott said there were only eight houses in Val Verde when he moved there. He boasted that he was the first resident to have a telephone in the community. He said that Val Verde was different then, “kind of wild.”

“There are lots of new people now,” he said. “Lots of the old-timers have died or moved away.”