Hills Lock In Small-Town Atmosphere : Grand Terrace: Tucked between two hillsides, community can’t grow much, and that’s the way they like it.
Carol Ann Brusven was raised in the Ventura County community of Moorpark and fondly recalls her small-town childhood. Looking for a place to put down roots as an adult, Brusven sought what can be elusive these days--”a place that had small-town atmosphere,” she said.
But she found it in the San Bernardino County town of Grand Terrace, population 12,600.
Brusven, 38, moved to Grand Terrace nine years ago from nearby Loma Linda. Situated 60 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, Grand Terrace lies nestled between La Loma Hills to the west and Blue Mountain on the east and is bordered by the cities of Colton to the north and Riverside on the south.
“I like the friendliness of people,” said Brusven, who had already lived the big-city experience during a year of graduate school. “In Los Angeles people don’t look at you,” she said. “When you walk down the street, they avoid eye contact.”
Eye contact is taken for granted in neighborly Grand Terrace, where a quick trip to the grocery store can drag on for 45 minutes, said longtime resident Vivian Aldrete.
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Aldrete, 43, a former cosmetologist who now operates a home-based sports lettering business, has reveled in Grand Terrace’s small-town life since she was 5.
Life in the town, she said, “has pretty much followed the same pattern as when I grew up.” And that’s just what she wanted for her three children.
For the last 20 years, Aldrete and her husband, Richard, 44, a truck driver for Western Metal Lathe in Riverside, have been comfortably settled in a home that, she said, has been undergoing remodeling for 15 of those years.
The house, for which they paid $18,500, has grown from two bedrooms and one bath in 980 square feet to four bedrooms, two baths and a family room in 2,600 square feet. They estimate their home’s value at $150,000 today.
Grand Terrace, Vivian Aldrete said, “was a very family community when I first moved here. It still is, on a larger basis.”
Time-honored traditions like block parties and weekend barbecues, and the initiation of a strong Neighborhood Watch-type program, called the Grand Terrace Watch Out Program, nurture a continuing sense of community, tightened by modern-day security.
Grand Terrace has a low crime rate, said Lt. Rodney Hoops, central station lieutenant for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department in Grand Terrace and Loma Linda. This allows officers to spend a high percentage of their work hours on patrol duty.
Most of the Grand Terrace residents interviewed agreed with Hoops’ assessment.
Leonard Miller, 30, who moved to Grand Terrace from Colton with his wife, Wendy, 25, and their two children in November, 1991, said he has seen no traces of graffiti on the concrete wall leading to his home.
“You can’t see where someone has painted over graffiti. The wall is the way it looked when they put it up,” Miller said.
Brusven’s husband, Ralph Handen, said he has noticed a greater ethnic mix in Grand Terrace’s neighborhoods in the last three years. Many people, he believes, have come to escape the violence of big-city life.
Increased police protection is a priority for Vivian Aldrete, who believes that the city’s crime issues are being addressed by organizations like the Grand Terrace Chamber of Commerce. And, she said, “the (sheriff’s department) is trying to stay on top of (crime), as much as possible.”
Much of Grand Terrace’s housing stock lies in single-family homes. According to Phyllis Ann Sternberg, owner/broker of Grand Terrace Real Estate, apartments and condominiums are in short supply in Grand Terrace. The low-end price for a 1,500-1,600-square-foot condominium with three bedrooms, three baths and a two-car garage is $115,000.
The price for a single-family home of similar size, but with two bathrooms, begins at $120,000, Sternberg said. A house in the city’s exclusive Honey Hill section, with 3,000-4,000 square feet of living space, several fireplaces, a weight room, pool, spa and three-car garage would be priced at $500,000 and up.
David and Dawana Bagley are Grand Terrace newcomers who relocated from Colton in 1990. They purchased a 26-year-old, 1,919-square-foot three-bedroom, two-bath home for $133,500.
Just four months after moving into their Grand Terrace home, David Bagley, 36, lost his job with a Torrance aerospace contractor. He now works for GHF Refrigeration of Anaheim and supplements the family’s income with a lawn-service business. Although his income has fallen by 50%, Bagley said he does not miss the daily 140-mile round-trip commute.
Dawana Bagley, 36, a child-care provider, and Vivian Aldrete, like the reputation of Grand Terrace’s elementary and junior high schools. The Bagley’s 6-year-old son “gets real good individual attention because there’s only 12 kindergartners in the class,” his mother said.
Brusven had no school-age children when she purchased her Grand Terrace home. “I bought the house as a one-person house,” she said. Today Brusven and her husband, a high school teacher, have two adopted daughters, ages 9 and 13.
The children originally attended schools in Yucaipa, where she teaches. This year her 9-year-old daughter attends Terrace View Elementary School in Grand Terrace, a magnet school emphasizing fine arts.
Grand Terrace schools are part of the Colton School District, and high school students are bused to Colton High School. That disturbs Brusven and the Bagleys.
“Colton (High School) has had a bad reputation for a long time for gangs and violence,” Brusven said.
“When we’re talking about Southern California and we’re talking high schools,” said Dr. Herbert Fischer, superintendent of the Colton Joint Unified School District, “there’s indeed a concern about gangs.”
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After a shooting at Colton High in the spring of 1992, Fischer said, the community rallied to find solutions. As a result, the school district initiated “proactive” measures including a closed high school campus, additional security staff on campus and a strict dress code.
Founded between 1830 and 1840 from Mexican land grants, Grand Terrace was bucolic in its early years, when farmhouses and outbuildings dotted the landscape.
After the Gage Canal was completed in 1886, it brought water from the nearby Santa Ana River to the thirsty area. Citrus, walnut and peach trees quickly became cash crops.
Residential tracts began to uproot the town’s farmland in the mid-1950s. Several luxury-size houses were also constructed on Honey Hill, the former site of the Miller American Honey Co.
The honey company was founded in the Grand Terrace area in 1910, after Utah beekeeper Nephi Miller successfully transplanted several of his beehives to the warmer winter climes of Southern California.
According to Carolyn Bowse, head of the Grand Terrace Branch Library, Nephi Miller and son Woodrow created a winter/summer migratory route for the bees, transporting them on the West’s railroad systems. Via these means, Miller American’s honey could be harvested year-round.
With its city limits tucked into just 3.7 square miles between two hillsides, “The geographical nature of our community limits any potential for growth,” said Thomas Schwab, Grand Terrace city manager.
But still, some Grand Terrace residents are nostalgic for the older days as the face of their community changes. The population rose from 4,580 in the 1980 census to 10,946 in 1990.
“I see less open fields, and I miss that,” Brusven said. “Part of what I’ve always looked at and enjoyed is (passing) horses on the way home. When you get off the freeway and you can pass a couple of horses before you get to your house, it’s nice. And I don’t see the horses anymore.”
At a Glance Population
1992 estimate 12,116
1980-90 change +139%
Median age 32.8 years
Annual income
Per capita 21,016
Median household 48,029
Household distribution
Less than $25,000 18.1%
$25,000 - $40,000 20.1%
$40,000 - $60,000 26.3%
$60,000 - $100,000 25.4%
$100,000 + 10.1%
