High Living Where Home Costs Low : Crestline: Full-time residents have flocked to San Bernardino County mountain resort town where air is clean, schools are good and neighbors friendly.

In 1952, Jim Huskey and his family moved to Crestline, where he set up shop as the town’s only barber. The population of the San Bernardino mountains resort community was around 1,800.

“Let me tell you how small a town it really was back then,” he said. “In my first year here, my oldest boy was having trouble with fractions. I had forgotten the steps to take. So I got frustrated, called his teacher, and she drove over to our house that evening and helped him with his homework.”

Huskey’s five children all grew up and went to school there, and now, Huskey said, he’s seeing two grandchildren do the same thing.

He hopes they can complete their schooling in the area, just as their father did. “We’ve always had great schools up here; I think it’s one of the better school districts in the state.”

About 18 years ago, Huskey stopped cutting hair and started selling real estate. He now operates one of the town’s more successful brokerages: Huskey Real Estate.

Although Crestline has grown, Huskey said that in the 38 years he’s lived there, it hasn’t lost much of those early characteristics.

“It’s still a small town, and I like that,” he said, noting that the population of unincorporated Crestline only has grown to roughly 13,000.

Like others living among the tall pines, oaks and cedars, Huskey sees Crestline as a community that offers a unique quality of life within commuting distance of one of the largest urban areas in the nation: the Southland.

Demand for that lifestyle seems to be not only staying strong, but increasing. (The U.S. Forest Service notes that Crestline and the rest of the San Bernardino Mountains hold title to being the most urbanized of California’s forests.)

“You know, we keep hearing about a recession and a slowdown, but business (home sales as well as rentals) keeps going up for us,” Huskey said.

“I think one of the reasons for that is because we can still sell someone a home without incurring the national debt. Someone can come up here, find a nice two- or three-bedroom home and be able to afford it.”

For example, a three-bedroom home in Crestline can range in price from $115,000 to $135,000. A two-bedroom home fetches from $70,000 to $90,000. The traditional, one-bedroom cabin can still be found for $50,000 to $70,000.

According to published figures, the median price for a home during August was $97,000, up 7.8% from the same month in 1989.

Don Olson is another of the town’s veteran real estate brokers. He and his family moved to Crestline about 20 years ago, but he was a lumber salesman at the time. He’s been in real estate for the past 10 years.

His brokerage, Realty World-Phillips Realty, also has seen no slowdown in sales.

“Where we are seeing the most impact (in terms of weekend versus full-time residents) is more first-time buyers,” Olson said. “We are seeing more of the CHFA (California Housing Finance Agency) loans. It’s a state program that offers assistance for those buying their first home.

“I think the reason we’re seeing more first-home buyers up here is because many people can’t afford prices down the hill in places like Orange County and Riverside County. So they find their way to Crestline.”

Crestline’s rural feeling springs from its history as a mountain resort, complete with lake, tall trees, wildlife and a bordering national forest. Because of the elevation--4,700 feet--the area offers more of a four-season flavor, including crocus in the spring and snow during the winter.

Since the turn of the century, Southern Californians have gone to Crestline for recreation. In 1906, a syndicate of investors with the intent of subdividing acreage for resort cabins and homes, bought 630 acres of land cleared by timber cutting.

Lots sold quickly, and the town’s name of Crestline was a result of a contest in the same year.

Crestline’s lake was built largely through federal W.P.A. funds between 1936 and 1938, and named after its developer and champion, Redlands businessman Arthur Gregory. The rock and earth dam was completed in 1938, and a road across it was finished in 1939.

Today, the lake and private clubhouse facilities built during the 1940s, are owned and operated by the county. Lake Gregory, with its 2.5 miles of shoreline, serves as one of the county’s recreation hubs, offering seasonal swimming and boating, and year-round fishing and picnic facilities.

Although Crestline has been known mostly for its cabins and weekend homes, things started to change during the 1980s. More full-time residents began settling in, making the town evolve into a full-time residential area, a bedroom community to much of the Inland Empire.

For Huskey, the ratio of people coming in looking for property separates into an 80/20 category. “I would say we see about 80% looking for year-round homes now, and only 20% vacation homes,” he said. Perhaps 15 years ago, he added, it was just the opposite.

Employment is mostly off the mountain, Olson said, but as Riverside and San Bernardino develop, that offers more opportunities to find good jobs within commuting distance of Crestline.

It is not unusual to find residents who commute to Riverside, Ontario or farther, such as the San Gabriel Valley or even Los Angeles. The weekday parade of commuters starts around 6 a.m.

Al Drake, a contractor, is part of the parade. Al and Joan Drake moved to Crestline 13 years ago from the La Puente area, and wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else in Southern California.

Why?

“It’s the neighbors, the way everyone knows everyone else, and helps everyone else that we appreciate,” said Joan Drake, who is active in Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts and church activities, and works for the Rim of the World School District.

The Drakes bought their home--a cabin built in 1925 on a half-acre--for $17,500 in 1978. Since then, they have added on. “You’ve heard of people who built a room onto a house,” said Al, laughing. “Well, we added a house onto a room.”

Al commutes down the hill just about every day, racking up about 150 miles round-trip.

Another commuting couple are Bob and Ruth Foster.

They have lived in Crestline for about six months, having moved from Riverside.

“I got the opportunity to work for the San Bernardino School District. Once there, and I didn’t have to drive very far, we’d go up to Crestline about once every two weeks. We’d dream about how nice it would be if we could live up there.

“Since I wasn’t driving so far, we decided we’d give it a try.”

The Fosters have yet to live through a winter, but Bob said last year he put chains on his truck and drove around in the snow. “It wasn’t bad,” he added.

And there’s the fog--actually clouds--that can hang on the rim and spill over into town, particularly in April and May. “I like the fog,” Ruth said, “but the first couple of times I drove in it, it did concern me. But you learn to pace yourself, take your time.”

Colin and Dael Strange believe they not only found a great place to live when they discovered Crestline, but a bargain as well.

“We bought this cabin in August and we paid $55,000 for it,” said Colin, who is the general manager for the Maruko Hotel and Convention Center in San Bernardino.

What they found was a 1,000-square-foot house with one bedroom and a loft. They remodeled the kitchen (“We’ve more work to do there, however,” Colin said), added another bedroom and did a lot of cosmetic work.

Crestline is fairly self-contained. Almost like a model small town, it has a large, independent supermarket, a movie theater, hardware store, clothing shops, gasoline stations, restaurants, a bank and a credit union, a county library and a 24-hour convenience store. A major chain supermarket--Stater Bros.--is 15 minutes away in Lake Arrowhead.

There is no home delivery of mail; residents have to go to the post office.

All of this helps to foster a community where residents get to know neighbors.

“And it’s safe. You can go out to your car at night and not worry about getting stabbed or mugged,” Joan Drake said.

One of Huskeys sons now lives in France and is a pianist for the Bordeaux ballet. He has lived in France for 22 years. “He came back about eight years ago and said he was relieved to see Crestline pretty much as it was when he grew up,” his father said. “He had been worried it might have changed too much.”

AT A GLANCE Population 1990 estimate: 10,103 1980-90 change: 50.4% Median age: 35.2 years Annual Income Per Capita: 14,978 Median househols: 35,769 Household distribution Less than $15,000: 15.0% $15,000 - $30,000: 25.5% $30,000 - $50,000: 29.4% $50,000 - $75,000: 18.2% $75,000+: 11.7%