A Bedroom Community Wakes Up : Simi Valley: When the San Fernando Valley became too expensive, farms gave way to homes, and now the Reagan Library is on its way.

To express the essence of nowhere, Johnny Carson once got a laugh with “Welcome to Pacoima, gateway to Simi Valley.”

It may be time to stop laughing. More than 100,000 people now make their homes in Simi Valley, on the eastern edge of Ventura County.

In the 1950s, Simi Valley was a spread of grain fields, walnut groves and citrus orchards stretching from Moorpark to Ventura.

Now Simi looks like an artist’s rendition of a classic suburb, lying between the Simi Hills and the Santa Susana Mountains, the slopes of which are protected by strict no-building rules.

The spindly saplings of new housing tracts have grown into bona fide shade trees, and the developments look the way they must have in drawings that attracted the first buyers in the 1960s.

There are only a few buildings with three or four stories, and a sign ordinance keeps chicken buckets and hamburger arches at the one-story level.

And Simi Valley, an incorporated city since 1969, has grown into more than simply a bedroom community for Los Angeles commuters, said Bruce M. Strathearn, 55, board chairman of Simi Valley Bank and a third-generation resident of the area.

“Simi Valley has matured into a genuine city,” he said in an interview in the hilltop home where he was born. “We have increasing numbers of our own industries, and people drive here to work, although, of course, many still commute to the L.A. area.

“After World War II, people settled into the San Fernando Valley because they could get cheaper housing than in the big city, and have a nicer environment as well.

“Then the Valley matured, got crowded and prices went up. Then people came over the Santa Susana Pass and settled here.

“Now commuters are going as far from L.A. as the Palmdale-Lancaster area, where housing is still relatively cheap. It’s a cyclical thing, and we are at the comfortable, mature stage.

The main issue . . . is preserving our good quality of life.”

It was that quality of life that led Bill and Cheryl Messina to move to Simi last September. They paid $208,000 for their first home, a 10-year-old house with three bedrooms and two baths.

Cheryl Messina grew up in Simi Valley and moved south to start her career, but now she commutes to Santa Monica, where she manages a software development company. She would rather commute than raise their 3-month-old daughter, Amanda, in “the city,” she said.

Long-distance commuting is common in Simi, which has the highest per-capita income in Ventura County. Much of that income is needed to pay the high cost of housing.

The Messinas had thought of buying in the San Fernando Valley three years ago, but decided on Simi Valley because “it’s more like family living here.” She had been living in Beverly Hills, and her husband, a fencing contractor, had moved to Van Nuys from Brooklyn.

Bill Messina pointed at the park across from their cul-de-sac in northeast Simi Valley. “There are lots of kids here, lots of families,” he said. “We had a block party recently and felt like we were part of a real neighborhood. It’s great.”

Not far away, Nina Rodriguez said she and her husband, Manny, an electrical equipment salesman, brought their two children to Simi Valley for the same reasons. They moved from North Hollywood to their a spacious house on Indian Hills Drive two years ago.

They paid $310,000 for the four-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath house, and it was worth every penny, she said.

“It’s such a nice, quiet neighborhood. So different from the big city. There are lots of parks and recreation things to keep people happy,” Nina Rodriguez said.

Longtime resident Pat Havens, director of the Simi Valley Historical Society, misses the old days when Simi Valley was really quiet. “I’d love to turn the clock back,” she said.

“I came here as a high school girl in 1943 when it was so open that the Santa Ana winds would blow the soil away. I miss seeing the ranch land, the barley fields, the apricot and walnut trees. But water was a problem. It became too costly to farm and so the land went to the subdividers.

“Growth has been good for all of us,” said John Mitchell, who with his brother Mike started Mitchell Co. Realtors “out of the back of our cars in 1974. Now look,” he said, gesturing at their firm’s large office building on Tapo Canyon Road.

Mitchell said Simi Valley home prices (85% of the residents own their homes) average $200,000, with prices gusting up to $400,000 in the foothills,

Mitchell noted that “you get a lot of home for your money” in Simi Valley. Old tract houses in the center of the valley and fixer-uppers can be bought for $150,000 to $170,000, he said, but the roomy single family dwellings are going for around $200,000 (the latest average sales figure from the Multiple Listing Service is about $240,000).

Mitchell cited the example of a four-bedroom, two-bath house listed at $210,000. A two-story model built in 1961, it includes a family room, RV parking and a large back yard with a sunken spa.

The $300,000 range brings even larger homes--some with four bedrooms and three baths--built around 1980. They also feature oak paneling, hardwood floors, spas, gazebos and extra brick work in the yards.

Mitchell said those who would rather rent can find one-bedroom apartments for about $700 a month, two-bedrooms beginning at about $800 and single-family homes for $1,000 and up.

Home prices in Simi are dropping somewhat. “We’re in a reality market now,” Mitchell said. “We are past the time when a seller could pick a large number, stick a sign in his lawn and call the movers.

“We are getting back to basics, the nuts and bolts of solid, reasonable pricing and financing.”

Film cowboys and Indians no longer do their chase scenes through Thousand Oaks and the Simi Valley, but movies are still made around the raw countryside.

“They still do a lot of chase scenes, but now they’re on the freeway,” said Jody Hoover, president of the Simi Valley Board of Realtors.

“There’s still plenty of room for riding horses,” she said. “There are equestrian trails all over. You can actually ride a horse to the beach from here.”

The city will be the home of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, under construction on the south side of town. Real estate investor Donald Swartz donated 100 acres near some upscale developments and sold the Reagan Foundation on the idea of locating the library halfway between Reagan’s homes in Bel-Air and Santa Barbara.

Simi Valley can get a little too hot and a little too cold, residents say, and they usually have a comment about the wind. (Simi is the Anglicized Chumash Indian word for wind.)

When it blows from the west it often brings smog from the developed coastal areas. And When the Santa Anas roar down through Santa Susana Pass the locals hunker down and close their eyes against the dust that blows off the dry hills.

There is no downtown in the Simi Valley, and there’s no main street. Cochran Street and Los Angeles Avenue run parallel through the valley, but they only serve to connect the city’s housing tracts with its numerous shopping centers. On the east side, the streets stop against the brushy, cactus-studded foothills.

The west side of Simi is being shaped by numerous small, smokeless industries that Strathearn sees as giving the city its independence. They make such high-tech items as communications systems, microwave components, air traffic control devices and computer hard discs.

Landmarks in the city’s growth, Strathearn said, were the completion of California 118 to the Los Angeles Basin and the acquisition of an ample water supply from the Southern California Water Co. and the Ventura County Waterworks District.

The next landmark, he said, will be the freeway interchange of California 23 from Thousand Oaks and 118 to Moorpark.

“The change will remove some traffic from our streets and keep it on the freeways,” Strathearn said.

That will suit the locals fine. Among cities of about 100,000, Simi Valley has only moderate traffic. It is a quiet city with little crowding and a very low crime rate, and residents want to keep the atmosphere pleasant.

“Look out there,” said realtor Mitchell, pointing at the sprawling suburbs surrounding his office. “It’s a great place to live. Good air quality, good traffic, good schools. . . . We raised four children here, and I’m proud of Simi.”

AT A GLANCE Population 1990 estimate: 105.021 1980-90 change: 35.5% Median age: 31.6 years Annual income Per capita: 16,434 Median household: 53,244 Household distribution Less than $15,000: 6.9% $15,000 - $30,000: 11.6% $30,000 - $50,000: 26.9% $50,000 - $75,000: 34.6% $75,000 + 19.9%