Open Spaces Help ‘Cowboyish’ Image Endure : Calabasas: Cultural activities remain in reach for city-minded folks while equestrians can still find a range to ride.

The sign on the hay wagon at the main entrance into town reads “Welcome to Calabasas, Last of the Old West.”

A little exaggerated perhaps, but Calabasas residents revel in their town’s Western heritage--both real and celluloid. A once-rowdy stage stop along El Camino Real and a favorite Hollywood staging area, the town has been home to well-known horse lovers, such as the Lone Ranger (Clayton Moore).

“I’m a frustrated cowboy myself,” admitted Alex Robertson, one of many residents who enjoy the wide open spaces of the nearby Santa Monica Mountains on horseback. More often than not, though, Robertson and his wife, Susan, can be found walking or biking with their two children around Lake Calabasas or along one of the area’s many other greenbelts.

Like many residents, it didn’t take the Robertsons long to decide to settle in Calabasas for good. In a little more than two years, they’ve purchased two Calabasas homes. The first was a three-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath home in a new Calabasas Hills subdivision that they moved into in late 1988.

But not long after, daughter Jessica joined 2-year-old Alexander in the nursery and 1,990 square feet didn’t seem as large as it had before. They sold the home in late 1990 for $340,000, which included a substantial profit.

However, it was harder than it sounds. “Our house was on the market for 11 months and more than 200 people came through to look at it,” Alex Robertson said.

Fortunately, the builder of their second home was having the same problem. The $690,000, four-bedroom, five-bath house originally carried a $740,000 price tag, and the Robertsons were able to negotiate plenty of extras.

Real estate slump or no, prices have continued to climb in Calabasas, said housing analyst Eric Brown of the Meyers Group in Encino. Today the average new home starts at about $300,000. Meanwhile, the least expensive resale in Calabasas during the past year was a three-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath home with a family room for $224,000, reported Myra Turek, longtime resident and real estate agent at Fred Sands Realty in Woodland Hills.

But expect to pay more, added Turek, “You can find some areas along Las Virgenes Road where single-family homes start in the high 200,000s, but in town, you generally have to start in the low threes (300,000s).”

For the latter price, you can choose small lots in newer tracts in Lost Hills and Malibu Canyon on the west or larger-but-older homes in the communities of Calabasas Highlands and Mulwood on the east. There the ceiling is the high $700,000s for older homes and the low $800,000s for newer models.

Resale townhomes start at about $130,000, while new construction starts at around $190,000; one three-bedroom, three-bath unit on Lake Calabasas recently listed for $540,000.

Whether by horseback or on foot, enjoying the scenery seems to be the most popular pastime in Calabasas. The town hugs the northern slope of the Santa Monica Mountains, blessing residents with an abundance of tree-covered ridges and valleys as well as air quality that residents insist is better than you’ll find on the San Fernando Valley floor.

The terrain also gives the recently incorporated West Valley community irregular borders. Calabasas is bounded by Mulholland Highway on the south, Mulholland Drive on the east, the Ventura Freeway on the north and Las Virgenes Road on the west; but you’ll find a cul de sac or two jutting out from every side.

Despite growth in traffic, the quality of life hasn’t changed much over the years, say longtime residents Sam and Evy Mallin who moved to town 16 years ago. Although they don’t ride themselves, the Mallins like living in a “cowboyish type of town,” and used to enjoy seeing their neighbors ride into Old Town Calabasas and tie up at the Sagebrush Cantina for an early morning breakfast or early afternoon beer.

Mercedes and BMWs have long since edged four-legged horsepower off the streets, as succeeding waves of well-heeled newcomers have filled the upscale developments. But in Calabasas Park, “things are exactly the way they were 15 years ago,” the Mallins insisted.

Well, maybe not everything. The Mallins’ three-bedroom, two-bath home is worth 10 times what they paid for it and what used to be a 40-minute drive to Sam’s furniture manufacturing facility in the City of Industry has turned into an hour each way. But, Sam says: “Anywhere we went, we feel that we would be lowering our standard of living. We believe that Calabasas is the best place in the Valley.”

The town wasn’t always so well-considered. During the 1880s when Miguel Leonis was patron of the Rancho El Escorpion, Calabasas was a necessary, but not necessarily welcome, stage stop on the way north from the more civilized environs of Los Angeles, said Rosemary Hulle, librarian of Kathleen Beachy Memorial Library at Pierce College. Because of the town’s reputation for rowdiness, “people who would ride through would go as fast as possible,” she noted.

El Escorpion eventually turned into smaller farms and Leonis’ Monterey-style adobe became a private residence. It survived demolition in the 1960s when local residents persuaded philanthropist Kathleen Beachy to donate seed money for a conservancy. The century-old building still sits on the north side of Calabasas Road next to the Sagebrush Cantina, providing an anchor to Old Town’s past.

To the east, on the other side of the Cantina, is an impromptu park with a few picnic tables and plenty of sycamores. Here Calabasas Creek surfaces before flowing northeast to join Bell Creek and form the headlands of the Los Angeles River. It was probably the creek that attracted the early Spanish explorers to the area--Gaspar de Portola in the early 1770s and Juan de Anza in 1776.

It’s unclear whether the Spaniards named Calabasas for the numerous wild gourds or “calabazos” native to the area or whether the name comes from a like-sounding Chumash word meaning “where the wild geese fly.” The latter is a reference to the many migratory species who still stop by Lake Calabasas.

Most residents moved to Calabasas to put a little distance between themselves and “The City.” But, of course, The City has been catching up.

A range war of sorts broke out one day seven years ago when residents discovered that a high-density office/commercial development was about to wash over the ridge east of Calabasas Road and into the quiet enclave around Lake Calabasas. About 25 members of the Calabasas Park Homeowners Assn. appeared at the County Hall of Administration the next day and it’s been a tug-of-war between residents and developers ever since.

Years of negotiations with succeeding builders have resulted in Calabasas Town Center, a much-downsized retail/office complex along Calabasas Road--on the freeway side of the ridge. These days, very little gets built in Calabasas without close scrutiny.

More than 91% of the city’s 9,000 voters opted for cityhood on March 5 in what was essentially a one-issue election: to establish local control over development within the 11-square-mile area. Of the 15 candidates who ran for five city council seats none was pro-development.

“We realize that we can’t stop development and we don’t want to,” says Calabasas Mayor-elect Dennis Washburn, a 20-year resident and longtime activist. “But let’s have compatible and controlled growth.”

Turek, who moved to Calabasas with her husband, Alan, in 1973 and is president of the CPHA, seconds that: “After all, if they had closed the gates to California in 1973, most of those who complain about development wouldn’t be here today.”

The gates are open just wide enough, says Bill Booth who, with wife, Vicki, moved into a new three-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath home just off the Parkway Calabasas golf course for $227,000 two years ago. “There seems to be a good balance between development and conservation,” he said. “I’m pleased that there are a few more homes being built for those of us who want to stay in the area.”

Vicki Booth has found people to be nothing but friendly and the town to have a far greater sense of community than the more urbanized environs of Tarzana where she grew up. “This has such a nice neighborhood feeling where everyone knows each other and watches out for each other and that is important to me. It’s a nice place to raise a family.”

Joyce Barkin first came to the area in 1970 and, in 1980, she and her husband, Bert, moved their CPA firm from Beverly Hills to Warner Center to be closer to their Calabasas home. They enjoy the quiet of the Calabasas hills, but he is from New York City and she from New Jersey, so city life also has its appeal.

“We go to a lot of plays and movies and dinners,” says Joyce. “During the week when we work a lot, we have a lot of favorite little restaurants in the area.”

She notes a marked improvement in both restaurant quality and availability recently and is happy with the balance between a quiet community and reasonable access to the amenities.

One thing Calabasas has always had is a highly regarded school district. That was what originally brought her family to town in 1973, said Turek, and Calabasas students continue to rank in the upper quartile on state achievement tests.

Brown, of the Meyers Group, said that developer surveys show the schools to be the biggest draw for new home buyers. That’s what finally tipped the scales for Susan Robertson, who originally was cool to the idea of moving to “The Valley” from a rent-controlled Santa Monica apartment: “With two kids, schools were everything to us, and we had heard that Las Virgenes School District was the final frontier.”

Life on the frontier has turned out pretty well, the Robertsons agree. As Alex Robertson heads out onto a clogged Ventura Freeway every day, he takes comfort from knowing that, “my family is safe at home in a nice neighborhood with a good school system. You can’t put a price on that.”