L. A. Seeks a New Tenant for an Old Relic of the Cold War : Oat Mountain: The 23-acre installation once housed missiles meant to protect the San Fernando Valley from Soviet attack. Now the city hopes to find a nonprofit group to use the site.

Not many 22-year-old college students can take study breaks in old Nike missile launching rooms and call an abandoned Army base home. But as caretaker of the old military installation on Oat Mountain in the hills above Chatsworth, Robert Hiller does just that.

At the height of the Cold War, dozens of Nike antiaircraft missiles were kept within the double-fenced, high-security compound, which was patrolled by packs of security guards. The missiles were to be used to defend the San Fernando Valley below against a possible attack from Soviet bombers.

But by the late 1960s, the Nike missiles had become obsolete, the missile storage pits were cleared out, and military officials gave the site to the city of Los Angeles.

Since 1978, the city had leased the compound to the California Conservation Corps. However, the corps vacated the buildings in October in a budget-cutting move. Now the city is accepting proposals from nonprofit organizations that could make use of the Cold War relic. While the city looks for a new tenant, it is Hiller’s responsibility to maintain the property and protect it from vandals.

Hiller, who is in the ROTC and hopes to become a pilot, doesn’t mind his lonely duty--although he thinks that it might have been more fun to be there when the base was still in use.

“Sometimes I think about when this place was operational, with the dogs, the guards, the lights. It’s kind of weird how things change,” he said. “I visualize what it would have been like to have been a soldier.”

More than 100 soldiers once lived at the site. Some slept alongside the missiles in one of three underground launching rooms; the rest stayed in long barracks in another area of the installation.

Hiller, who studies meteorology at UCLA, got the job as the city’s caretaker because he was a part-time counselor and security guard at Oat Mountain when it was used as a work camp by the California Conservation Corps.

Corps members, who are between 18 and 23, earn minimum wage to work on environmental projects and assist in emergencies such as brush fires. In exchange for using the facility, the state had been providing the city with about $50,000 worth of labor hours each year, corps officials said.

Until October, the corps used the Oat Mountain facility to house an average of 60 to 80 members who worked on a range of projects--from trimming trees to building trails--in the Valley area.

After learning last summer that they would have to trim $2 million from their $56-million budget, state corps officials vacated the Oat Mountain facility.

Frank Mercier, a senior real estate officer for the city, said city officials want to lease the sleeping and dining facilities to a nonprofit group for a nominal fee.

The main cluster of buildings--which include barracks, an office and a mess hall--would be ideal housing for a children’s camp, a residential drug treatment program or some other operation that is not well-suited for the heart of an urban area, said Greig Smith, chief deputy for City Councilman Hal Bernson.

Hiller said the buildings are structurally sound, but need renovation of deteriorating plumbing and electrical circuits.

The YMCA has already expressed interest in the land for a camp, Smith said.

“We want to see something that’s a real public benefit up there,” Smith said.

Reminders of the facility’s original purpose are still everywhere. Much of the double fencing around the perimeter of the 23-acre complex is standing. Security guard shacks--now painted peach--are scattered around the grounds.

Up the road from the sleeping and dining quarters are the three underground rooms that once housed the Nike missiles. The rooms, constructed of thick, reinforced concrete, are equipped with huge elevators designed to raise the missiles to ground level to shoot at incoming bombers.

Hiller said that when he initially came to Oat Mountain, he was fascinated with the underground launching rooms, complete with sleeping quarters.

“I used to go down there and walk around just for the hell of it,” he said. “It was so quiet in here and other times I would turn on ‘60s music and think about the guys that were here.”

When the CCC closed the Oat Mountain camp, about 57 corps members living there were relocated to centers in Camarillo, San Pedro and Pomona, leaving the San Fernando Valley without a corps presence, said Ron Perry, regional director.

Corps officials are trying to establish a satellite office in the Valley to use as a base for non-residential crews. They have had discussions with Mission College officials about using space at the campus.

“It will be a high priority for us because we want to be able to continue services in the San Fernando Valley,” Perry said. “We are going ahead to find a place that is suitable.”

In the meantime, Hiller said he is enjoying living alone atop Oat Mountain and is in no hurry to see the city rent the place out.

He doesn’t feel too haunted by the ghosts of the past, although former soldiers occasionally drop by to show a friend or family member where they served.

“It is ideal for a student,” he said. “There is nobody to bother you.”