Santa Clarita Gets a Shot From the Hip : Lifestyle: Trendy shops and coffeehouses transform a once-rural community proud of its Western heritage. Yuppies get the credit--and blame.

Are the yuppies coming to Santa Clarita?

Some locals seem to think they’re already here and it’s just a matter of waking up to smell the coffee, or, if you prefer, cafe latte with a sprinkle of nutmeg.

While the community is still a long way from a BMW in every garage and a Cuisinart in every kitchen, the opening in September of the Valencia Town Center shopping mall has made an indelible impression.

For one thing, it has forced mom-and-pop shops to cope not only with a general economic downturn, but to compete with department stores such as Robinsons-May, J. C. Penney and a host of other retail heavy hitters.

Now, in nearby Newhall, the recent openings of two European-style coffeehouses and a pasta restaurant, complete with neon signs and flashy menus, may portend a trend toward catering to the tastes of a younger, wealthier and more white-collar population.

And if car phones are an emblem of that changing population, David Biondolillo, president of Cellular Mobile Phone Co. of Van Nuys, a PacTel Cellular agent that markets in Santa Clarita, says his company has been adding an average of 500 new phones a month in Santa Clarita in the last year.

“The market in that area is ahead of the norm,” he said. “There’s a lot of commuters, a lot of people that are very mobile, and they’re pretty aware of high-tech products.”

For a rural community that for decades was more at home with onion fields and the remnants of its Western heritage, the appearance of luxury cars with squiggly antennas and hip eateries more typical of West Hollywood or Santa Monica is causing a juxtaposition of old and new that may take a little getting used to.

“We are changing,” acknowledges Jerry Reynolds, curator of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society. “Until, say, about the ‘60s, the area out here was pretty rural and Western in character. When you went out to eat, you generally knew the person firsthand who owned the place.”

After the 1960s, Reynolds says, the Santa Clarita Valley began “a transformation from the rural, cowboy, farmer orientation” to tract homes and mini-malls.

“In the late ‘60s we got Canyon Country and Valencia,” Reynolds said. “That sort of changed things from the Western feel to the yuppie, bedroom-community feel.”

With the completion of the Golden State Freeway in 1972, Reynolds says, a corridor was opened making the area far more accessible.

If not “yuppification,” certainly a trend toward gentrification with a family emphasis had begun as long as 20 years ago, Reynolds said.

With pickup trucks and farm vehicles giving way to Infinitis and Volvo station wagons, new restaurants with names such as Fiamma in Canyon Country and Il Terrazzo in Newhall have joined the ranks of Santa Clarita’s 5,000 small businesses. Those eateries are now vying for customers with long-standing establishments such as the Saugus Cafe, Tip’s and the Blue Moon.

In terms of percentages, the demographic profile of Santa Clarita didn’t change drastically between 1980 and 1990.

According to census figures compiled for the city by Urban Decision Systems in Los Angeles, the segment of the population in the 20- to 34-year-old age bracket rose only from 27.3% in 1980 to 28.2% in 1990.

In real numbers, however, the population in that age bracket nearly doubled from 15,305 to 29,871 during that 10-year span, when the overall population in the city of Santa Clarita--which includes the communities of Canyon Country, Newhall, Saugus and Valencia--grew from 56,203 to 110,638.

“I think we’re a traditional suburban commuter community,” said Gail Foy, the city’s public information officer. “Of the people that work full-time, 50% commute outside the valley to work.”

Foy said a recent study commissioned by the city found that many of the commuters would even take a pay cut to work closer to home. Coupled with that, she said, is a desire for the type of restaurants, shopping, movie houses and other services that would make traveling into the big city unnecessary.

Among the shops that are trying to capitalize on the tastes of a growing--and by most accounts changing--population are the Cambridge Coffeehouse, which opened about 18 months ago in the Lyons Plaza on Lyons Avenue in Newhall, and Mitch’s Java ‘n Jazz, which opened in May and is located hardly a mile east on Lyons Avenue from the Cambridge.

The fact that two coffeehouses have cropped up within such a small radius and are, according to their proprietors, doing a fairly brisk business, may be evidence that the community’s tastes are becoming increasingly urbane.

Other restaurateurs--owners of Il Terrazzo, open only six months, and the Pasta Grill in Newhall or Fiamma in Canyon Country--think that their lively business, which flies in the face of a stifling recession, resulted from catering to those changing tastes. Polly Hodges, who along with Julius Giannini and Robert Franco, opened the Argentinian-Italian Pasta Grill on Lyons Avenue in March, says her partners recognized just that kind of opportunity.

“They said Newhall needs a restaurant like this,” she said.

“There are a lot of people who moved out here from the big city, from Hollywood, Beverly Hills and the Westside,” said Il Terrazzo owner Massimo Noja, whose business has been so good that he is planning to open another restaurant/night club in the area.

Fiamma owner Federico Falco says he and partner Najam Kham were thinking along the same lines when they opened their eatery 16 months ago.

“Especially in the beginning, we were tremendously successful,” he said. “My partner lives here and convinced me that there were no Italian restaurants out here.”

With the recent opening of the Angelo Cafe on Soledad Canyon Road, Canyon Country now has two, Falco said.

But the very words “out here,” some residents say, bespeak a developing paradox in Santa Clarita, which has been incorporated only for 5 1/2 years.

The changing demographics, they contend, offer growing opportunities to open businesses that may eventually spell the end of what lured many to the area in the first place.

“It’s sort of becoming another San Fernando Valley,” laments Reynolds. “The paradox is that people come ‘out here’ to Santa Clarita for its rural atmosphere and immediately demand a bunch of services. There goes the rural atmosphere, and then they wonder what happened to it.”

Other statistics may foretell continuing trends toward gentrification in Santa Clarita’s population: The percentage of residents working in professional, technical and managerial areas or as proprietors grew from 29.6% in 1980 to 37.4% in 1990.

The percentage of those who attended at least some college rose from 45.6% in 1980 to 64.9% in 1991. In addition, the white-collar work force has grown steadily while the ranks of blue-collar employees have shrunk.

Lastly, the average income per household rose from $28,337 in 1980 to $60,403 10 years later.

“We’re a young, affluent community,” said city information officer Foy. The median age, according to the Urban Decisions Systems report, is 31. “In the last 10 years, there’s been an influx of white-collar, upwardly mobile young people. Today’s baby boomers tend to be more goal-oriented, and buying a house is definitely a goal, but you have to have something to do after you mow the lawn.

“We are starting to have some of the trappings of a suburban, upscale community,” Foy said, citing the mall, some of the new shops and the Metrolink commuter train that ferries people between Santa Clarita and Los Angeles.

Other proprietors, such as Jeri Bronstrup, who since 1971 has owned the landmark Way Station Coffee Shop in Newhall’s more traditional east end, says she’s not afraid of change, especially since her clientele are loyal, longtime locals who always return for the hearty breakfasts and lunches.

“I don’t feel threatened by the changes,” she said, “but they should try to preserve some of the town’s local flavor and heritage, which means hospitality and warmth in a setting that’s aesthetically pleasing.”

Whether a balance can be struck between tradition and change remains to be seen.

In the meantime, trendy restaurants and shops are likely to grow right along with the area’s burgeoning population of well-heeled, white-collar residents.

“We have a community of 150,000 with all this discretionary income,” Foy said of the greater Santa Clarita area. “It’s about time this area was discovered.”