Special Report: Moving to the Valley : CALABASAS : Friendliness Appeals to New Jersey Natives

Though they anticipated a new home full of gushing Valley Girl stereotypes, the New Jersey-native Sandlers were still caught off guard by the friendliness of strangers after the family moved to Calabasas on Christmas Day.

“As soon as we ask somebody for directions, out come the pencil and paper, maps are drawn, people get out of their cars to point out the way,” said Shelley Sandler, 44. “It’s amazing. In New York, you ask someone a question and they think you’re going to mug them.”

Sandler, her husband, Alan, and their daughters rented a condo in Calabasas after the entertainment company where Alan Sandler works as chief financial officer moved to Los Angeles.

“When I first got here I thought, ‘Where is everyone? There’s no one on the streets. Where did all the people go?’ ” Sandler said. “Then I realized, ‘Oh, they’re all inside cars.’ ”

They’ve been introduced to business associates in Northridge, Brentwood and Pacific Palisades and followed recommendations to shop at Topanga Plaza shopping center and along Ventura Boulevard.

And they’ve already been indoctrinated into the car culture.

“The 101 freeway is the artery of life,” Sandler said knowingly in her mostly bare kitchen. “That’s lesson No. 1.”

There are certain things the Sandlers will miss, though, about their life in a 22nd-floor apartment overlooking Manhattan across the Hudson River from New Jersey. Now they must get in their car and drive to buy a carton of eggs or a roll of toilet paper, and they haven’t found a place in Calabasas to get a bagel before 9:30 a.m.

“I wanted to find a high-rise apartment on a busy street here, but the only place was on Wilshire Boulevard,” Sandler said. “We used to watch the cars on the bridge below us and the Manhattan skyline, and now I look out the window and see cows grazing on the hillside. There’s something nice about that, though.”

Although the San Fernando Valley isn’t exactly an exotic country, the food may take some getting used to for the Sandlers.

“They want to put avocados and bean sprouts on top of everything,” said daughter Maddy, 17. “And the pizza isn’t as good.”

Thankfully, said Maddy, not every stereotype of California life has held true. “No one really talks like the Valley Girl,” she said. “What a relief.”

Sandler said she envisions fitting right in with the outgoing nature of her new neighbors, and plans to become active in parents’ groups at the respected A.E. Wright Middle School, which daughter Dana will attend.

Unlike many who migrate to the Valley under more stressful conditions, the transition for the Sandlers apparently will be marked by only a few small bumps.

Amid the packing boxes this year, for instance, Christmas at the Sandler home slipped by mostly unobserved.

“How can it be Christmas?” said daughter Stephanie, 18. “There’s no snow.”