Losing the Ranch : Cowboy Evicted From Camp for Handicapped Youths; Site Sought

If they made a movie about the life of Johny Carpenter, a star of old low-budget Westerns, the action would start with Carpenter galloping in, determined to wrest his ranch from the varmints who poached it.

But in the real world, it will take more than the fast draw of a six-shooter for Carpenter to re-establish his Heaven on Earth Ranch, a mock Western town devoted to handicapped children.

After 23 years in Lake View Terrace, Carpenter and his ranch were evicted in January to make way for a possible housing development.

Ever since, Carpenter, 78, who starred in such 1940s Westerns as “Santa Fe Saddlemates” and “Song of Old Wyoming,” has been corralled in his cluttered North Hollywood apartment, waiting for a good Samaritan to donate funds or an acre of land so he can reopen the ranch.

The crusty old cowboy has received support from such people as City Councilman Joel Wachs and Deputy Dist. Atty. Albert MacKenzie. But he is no closer to reopening the ranch.

“Of course I miss the ranch, you little snot,” he snapped at a reporter. “But I wasn’t born to give up. I can buy and sell anyone, if nothing else, with my mouth.”

Then Carpenter, an expert horseman, glanced down at his gnarled hands.

“Right now, I could use all the help I can get,” he said in a choked voice.

Evidence of better days abounds.

His brown living room carpet is layered with mounds of memorabilia--the 1982 Reader’s Digest article about his ranch that catapulted him to national fame, tattered newspaper clippings about his altruism dating to 1945, trophies and letters of commendation from such people as President Ronald Reagan.

Carpenter developed an empathy with the disabled 60 years ago when he was 18. An Arkansas native who learned to ride horses on the family farm, he was the victim of a hit-and-run accident that left him with internal injuries, a broken back and his left leg broken in seven places.

“They had to reroute my stomach and put a metal plate in my leg. If you don’t believe me, I’ll drop my pants,” he offered.

He opened the ranch in Glendale in the mid-1940s, after finding that a group of blind musicians he taught to ride gained confidence and a newfound sense of freedom. In 1970, he moved to a rental property off Foothill Boulevard in Lake View Terrace.

Over the years, thousands of children from the Los Angeles Unified School District and such groups as the United Cerebral Palsy/Spastic Children’s Foundation were greeted at the ranch gates by a hand-painted sign that explained Carpenter’s philosophy: “The service we render to others is really the rent we pay for our room on this earth.” The children would spend the day touring the Western town for free in wagons and on horseback, and eating barbecued hamburgers.

One of the children Carpenter helped was Randy Horton, now 33. Horton has cerebral palsy and cannot speak clearly, but his mother, Majorie McIntosh of San Fernando, is a big Carpenter fan.

“They were going to do a hip replacement on Randy because he couldn’t open his legs,” Miller said. “Then Johny taught him to ride and we never had to do the operation. Randy just worships the ground he walks on.”

Carpenter’s many supporters pitched in to help pay the $700-a-month it cost to rent the land. Carpenter spent most of his monthly $613 Social Security check to rent his North Hollywood apartment.

“The ranch is his whole life, he does it for nothing and he lives like a pauper,” MacKenzie said.

Then last August, the owner of the ranch, June McKinley, evicted Carpenter in hopes of selling the five-acre property or subdividing it for a small housing development. Carpenter did not have a written lease for the ranch but fought the eviction in court on the grounds of breach of verbal contract. He lost.

The case went to arbitration, and Carpenter was awarded $20,000 in damages Thursday. But McKinley could force the civil case to trial by refusing to pay.

McKinley’s attorney, Frank D. Rubin, could not be reached Thursday. But late last month he said his client is simply trying to cash in her property investment.

“This lady is not some big callous, indifferent corporation turning out poor helpless kids,” Rubin said. “She’s a senior citizen who is property rich and cash poor. I can match that old coot tear for tear with June’s story.”

Sympathetic both to McKinley’s property rights and to Carpenter, Wachs’ office tried to find city property to use as a ranch, said the councilman’s chief deputy, Arline DeSanctis. But Carpenter grew impatient with the lengthy search and announced that he was moving the ranch to Lake Los Angeles. The move never occurred.

Meanwhile, children who used to make field trips to the ranch are going to the beach and Disneyland.

“It’s just not the same and the kids can feel the difference,” said Sylvia Rhoades, who teaches preschoolers with communication problems . “Deep down inside of every child, there is this need for a hero. Somehow or other they seem to see Johny--this big brusque man who wears cowboy clothes and a hat that is dirty and dusty--as someone they can really open up to.”