Peace Nears in Suburban Range War : Camarillo: Equestrians have wrangled with Las Posas Hills residents for years over blocked trails. A settlement is likely.

The door knocker on Dave Anderson’s Camarillo home is a brass horse’s head.

Paintings and drawings of horses decorate his home. From the corral in his back yard where Mora, a 22-year-old Lippizaner horse, paws the sawdust, Anderson can look across a canyon and see the arena at the Las Posas Equestrian Center.

The center’s two dusty outdoor arenas lie on the rim of the canyon. Below the arena is a barranca that is dry much of the year, and flanking it are the neatly landscaped custom houses of the Las Posas Hills subdivision.

The apparent tranquility of the scene, however, is deceiving.

For five years, a legal wrangle has strained relations between members of an equestrian club that uses the center and residents of the subdivision who blocked off part of the bridle paths. They didn’t want horseback riders galloping across their back yards.

The loss of the trails has angered Anderson, who retired from the Navy in 1963 to pursue his interest in horses.

When he moved to Camarillo in 1961, Anderson said, “the realtors would say, ‘If you want horses, go to the Las Posas Estates.’ ” Anderson and other riders ranged over the nearby hills for 20 years until the Las Posas Hills subdivision was developed.

But the suburban equivalent of a range war may finally be nearing an end, participants say, with negotiations edging toward an agreement that would restore some of the trail.

Located in a shallow bowl west of Valley Vista Drive, the equestrian center is home to the Las Posas Rancheros, a 30-year-old riding club that stages monthly competitions at the center’s modest arena.

Many of the 100 families who belong to the club moved to Camarillo so they could ride horses in a semi-rural setting.

The arena at the Las Posas Equestrian Center is the hub of a two-mile network of bridle paths that allows members to ride literally in their back yards. But the trails also circle the newer subdivision, which is largely populated by residents who do not own horses.

Riders such as Anderson say they began using the trails when avocado and lemon orchards still dotted the rolling terrain, decades before the land was subdivided in 1985.

In an agreement with Griffin Homes, the developer of the Las Posas Hills subdivision, the bridle trails were recorded as permanent easements on the tract map, club members assert.

But many of the residents who purchased lots and built custom homes in the subdivision say they were never informed of the easements. Some discovered only after moving in that they unwittingly shared their yards with a steady stream of horses, off-road vehicles, dogs, bicyclists and pedestrians.

Several homeowners built fences to block the trails five years ago, and the Las Posas Rancheros filed suit against the Las Posas Hills Homeowners Assn.

The homeowners, in turn, sued the developer and the real estate firm that had omitted any mention of equestrian trails in their deeds.

The conflict is the result of “one lifestyle confronting another,” said Bob Schroeder, president of the Rancheros.

Construction crews had stacked eucalyptus logs across the bridle path in 1986 when Bob MacAlister first surveyed the lot he later purchased in Las Posas Hills.

A Los Angeles native and Caltech engineer who lived in London for the last 20 years of his career, MacAlister returned to Southern California in search of a quiet neighborhood where he and his wife, Catherine, could retire.

When the couple moved into their new home, they quickly learned that the peace and quiet they had envisioned was often interrupted by passers-by using the trail in the barranca behind their home.

Although some riders would offer friendly greetings, MacAlister, 67, said others engaged in loud conversation as they passed by.

“I don’t particularly care for (the loud conversation),” he said. “I don’t feel I have privacy in my own garden anymore.

“I’m not against horses or equestrians. I’m just against them coursing through my back yard.”

To Brenda Morgan, who heads the Rancheros’ trail committee, the part of the trail that was lost cannot be replaced.

“They cut off the whole lower end of the loop,” she said.

Although some residents have cooperated by allowing riders to pass through their property, the loop is lost forever unless the court rules in the riders’ favor, Morgan said.

She said she resents the residents who blocked the trails.

“They have their big fat swimming pools and concrete tennis courts, but they have no use for horses,” Morgan said.

By blocking the trails, the new arrivals have attacked a part of what made Camarillo special, Morgan said.

“The beauty of Camarillo has been its wide open spaces, and the chance to live an outdoor life,” Morgan said.

But according to David Schumaker, one of the homeowners opposed to the bridle trails, only “a few wealthy people who can afford horses” benefit from the trail system. Few members of the Las Posas Rancheros live in the Las Posas Hills subdivision, he said.

An attorney, Schumaker insists that the subdivision tract map that was actually recorded did not include equestrian trails and that claims by the Las Posas Rancheros for the trails based on long-term use are exaggerated.

Money that the Pleasant Valley Recreation and Parks District appears willing to spend to maintain the trails, he said, would be better spent on an outdoor, year-round pool for Camarillo’s children.

The dispute between recreational riders and homeowners in Camarillo is typical of those in rural areas that are undergoing development, said Amy Mann, a specialist in bridle trails with the American Horse Council.

The Washington-based group represents more than 180 horse owner organizations and seeks ways to preserve the nation’s declining number of riding trails.

“As communities move further and further out from the urban area, new residents think they will enjoy the rural atmosphere,” Mann said. “Then they get out there, and they don’t want the animals near them.”

The Pleasant Valley Recreation and Parks District was named as one of the defendants in the Las Posas Rancheros’ suit. Even so, the district has tried to remain neutral, said Eldred Lokker, the district’s general manager.

The root of the problem, Lokker said, was that few of those who purchased lots in Las Posas Hills were horse people.

Attempts to resolve the case out of court foundered, he said, when the Rancheros held out for the entire trail system defined in the subdivision map, rather than just the trails that they had already created.

Before the suit was set to go to trial in Superior Court four months ago, negotiations were started that have now led the parties to the brink of an out-of-court settlement.

Key to the possible agreement is the willingness of several homeowners outside the conflict to allow the trail to cross their property. With their help, the Rancheros would be able to ride on a trail in the bottom of the barranca.

But the solution will not close the loop.

“It’s not a final answer,” said Anderson.

Schroeder, the Rancheros’ president, agrees.

“The proposed settlement won’t make anybody happy, but it’s a solution that is probably acceptable to all.”