A Takeoff On Commuting : Antelope Valley: The living hasn’t always been easy for Rosamond Skypark residents, but work or play is always just a runway away.

To the casual observer, the Rosamond housing development appears to be like the many dozens of new home projects that dot the Antelope Valley landscape.

There are tidy, comfortable homes with the usual carpet of lawns, interspersed with tumbleweed-covered lots. These homes sit near sparsely vegetated foothills of craggy red rock and the remnants of a century-old gold mine, against the backdrop of the Tehachapi Mountains.

But it doesn’t take long to realize something is different about this Rosamond development, about a mile north of the Los Angeles County line in Kern County.

Next to each home in the development is a large, beige warehouse-like building: an airplane hangar.

In the 104-acre development known as Rosamond Skypark, each of the 28 single-story homes comes with an airplane hangar, and they originally sold for $166,000 to $285,000. Each home/hangar has an apron and taxiway and easy access to a 3,600-foot runway.

Like the avid golfer who lives next to the links or the committed yachtsman who resides by the sea, residents of Rosamond Skypark make their homes with the utmost of convenience to do what they love--fly.

These are residents who fly whenever they can--whether it is getting to work, going shopping or vacationing. And, of course, there are the countless flights to nowhere, just for the pleasure of a bird’s-eye view of the world.

“I’m an airplane buff,” said Skypark resident Angel Gonzalez. “This is the only place I could have all my loved ones under the same roof--my airplane, my car, my dog, my wife and my kids.

“It’s a way of combining my hobby and home life. It worked out better for my home life.”

The flying’s always been fine at Rosamond Skypark, but residents admit the living has sometimes been difficult. Skypark’s developers defaulted on their construction loan before finishing the project, which was to have included 60 homes and a small lodge. The fate of the unbuilt portions of the tract remains uncertain.

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Regardless, Rosamond Skypark was a dream come true for John Wilson, a system engineer for a television network. By moving there seven years ago, shortly after the development opened, Wilson was able to expand his flying from weekends to daily.

Wilson commutes to work in Hollywood in his Cessna 182, a single-engine, four-passenger plane, in a flight that takes about 30 minutes--easily shaving an hour off a driving commute and sparing him the hassles of traffic. He even plane-pools.

When Wilson, a pilot for 15 years, lived in Burbank he drove to work. Now he flies to the airport in Burbank and drives a car he keeps parked there.

Initially, his bosses did not expect his plane commuting would work, Wilson said. Now they don’t even ask about it.

The first four years Wilson commuted by plane he was joined by his wife, who also worked in the Los Angeles area. Now he flies two or three other people, all of whom work at the Lockheed facility next to the Burbank Airport.

“I’m the official Lockheed shuttle,” Wilson quipped as he readied his plane on a recent weekday morning for its 6:20 a.m. departure.

Flying to work from Rosamond saves at least two hours a day in commute time, he said, noting the airplane’s fuel costs are about $80 per week.

Across the country, tens of thousands of people live in fly-in communities, where the amenities include a runway.

A June, 1993, directory of residential air parks from the aviation publication General Aviation News & Flyer listed more than 300 air parks in the United States. Rosamond Skypark is one of the largest and newest of the two-dozen fly-in developments in California, some of which have only a handful of aircraft based at them. There are none in Los Angeles County.

Skypark communities, residents say, offer something that is increasingly hard to find in single-family home developments--camaraderie. Residents share a passion that binds them.

Any time a person’s hangar door is open, residents say, visitors are welcome.

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The goodwill goes beyond simple socializing. In May, 17 Rosamond neighbors flying in seven airplanes vacationed together in Mexico. This weekend, a similar-size Rosamond group went camping in Idaho.

“All you have to do is mention you’re going someplace and you’ll have planes following,” said Rosamond Skypark resident Al Carlson, who with wife Teri regularly take vacations where they can camp under the wing of their Cessna.

On Sundays, when they aren’t camping, the Carlsons fly to Van Nuys Airport. Their son meets them and they go to a nearby church where Teri Carlson plays the organ. She said her ability to get to the Valley with the short plane ride keeps her playing the organ for the distant church.

About one month ago some Skypark newcomers--a pair of pilots from nearby Edwards Air Force Base--hosted a fly-in, complete with a barbecue and parts swap meet. A couple of hundred residents and fly-in guests attended.

“It’s kind of nice walking out your door and getting into your plane,” said John Bergum, a resident and co-owner of Aronson’s Aircraft Service, which sells fuel, does aircraft repairs and rents planes at the Skypark.

Among the residents of the Rosamond development, only two homeowners do not own planes. One stores his antique car collection in his hangar. The other is a retired pilot in his 80s who continues his lifelong love of aviation by sitting and watching, from his own property, the high-winged Cessnas, home-built aircraft and restored classics.

“The CC&Rs; (covenants, conditions and restrictions) doesn’t say you have to own an airplane, but it does say you have to have a hangar,” said George Fischer, president of the Rosamond Skypark Property Owners Assn. and a pilot since 1947.

It is the CC&Rs; residents are relying on to ensure the Skypark vision remains unchanged when a buyer is found for the undeveloped areas. The original developers, BVS Development Inc. and Woodland American Homes Inc., defaulted on their construction loan in 1989. Since then, the Resolution Trust Corp. has become the conservator of the lender, further complicating the development’s future.

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Victor R. Lundin, president of the now-defunct Woodland American Homes, speaking from his San Fernando Valley home Thursday, said, “It was a great concept . . . (but) Murphy’s Law was prevalent from the start.”

Lundin has filed bankruptcy, as has his Woodland American Homes.

The disposition of the Skypark property still has not been resolved.

The original brochures for the Skypark said it would feature a 24-room lodge with swimming pool and spa. Those amenities were never built.

Even before the developers’ troubles surfaced, the residents had problems. Early in the project, residents sued the developers and gained control of the property owners association, which maintains the resident-owned airstrip, open space and other common areas.

But even under residents’ ownership, the future of the airstrip remains uncertain. Rosamond’s growth in the last several years has encroached on the airstrip, which was built in the 1940s by Bill Barnes, son of the famed aviator Pancho Barnes. Bill Barnes’ widow, Shouling, said he jokingly called the strip he created by clearing tumbleweeds Rosamond International Airport.

Nearly 50 years later the landing pattern for the airstrip, where there are about 15,000 takeoffs and landings a year, takes planes over single-family homes where there once was only sagebrush.

Several years ago, Skypark residents got the Kern County Board of Supervisors to require new tracts within one mile of the airstrip to provide navigation easements--recognizing that planes will fly overhead.

By signing the easements, the new home buyers acknowledge the existence of the airstrip. Although that would not necessarily prevent them from trying to close it down, Skypark residents said it would help their cause if a legal battle ever occurred.

“What we hope is (that) a generation from now we’re still here,” resident Al Carlson said. “As development occurs and this place looks more and more like the San Fernando Valley, they’ll say, ‘That noisy airport--let’s turn it into a park or a golf course.’ ”