Pool Made Such a Splash, Couple Seeks Relief in Calmer Waters

Steve and Linda Erinberg are spending Independence Day in an Arizona hotel with a swimming pool.

This is like Candy and Aaron Spelling--who own an opulent Beverly Hills home as big as a theme park--deciding to go to a Motel 6 to get away from it all.

The Erinbergs are the creators of a 4,000-square-foot, $350,000 back-yard swimming hole with every imaginable bell and whistle.

But on the Fourth of July, the pool will be home alone.

The Erinbergs moved into their new home in the upscale Circle J Ranch area of Santa Clarita more than a year ago and decided to build a pool that would show off some of the options available to other homeowners who wanted to build pools.

This seemed a reasonable idea since the Erinbergs own a pool construction company. It could be good for business, they figured.

What they didn’t know was just how good it was going to be for business. “We’ve been so busy, we just had to get away,” Steve Erinberg says.

The pool was mapped out by Steve as he walked around his 130-by-120-foot yard, marking his ideas with spray paint. “I just tried to think of what would look good where,” the 42-year-old Van Nuys High graduate says.

Over the months, the project started taking on a life of its own. Erinberg remembers going over and over the plans to add something else he’d just thought of.

Completed about a month ago, it’s your average water wonderland.

The pool is on a scenic plot overlooking the Santa Clarita Valley and is surrounded by a sandy beach, barbecue area, picnic tables and palm trees.

The pool itself is on several levels with an island, cave, waterfall and two 10-foot bridges. There’s also a swim-up bar. And the cave even has its own sound system.

It is to your usual back-yard swimming pool what Disneyland is to a swing set, and it’s drawn media from all over the world, according to Erinberg.

“After a story in The Times, we started having television stations send crews over to shoot it. At least one station sent a helicopter so they could get an aerial view,” Erinberg says.

Writers and photographers have come from publications in France and England to see it, and several pool industry publications have done layouts, Erinberg says.

The interest has been great. Maybe too great.

“I’ve had a lot of work and now that summer’s here, everyone wants their pools finished now, “ he says.

Which is why, instead of inviting a pool full of happy splashers to enjoy their back-yard wonder, the Erinbergs have fled to Arizona.

“We are still going to have friends over and let charities use the pool for fund-raisers,” says Erinberg. “But we needed a little time to ourselves. It’s been a pretty hectic year.”

Focusing on Domestic Violence

The growing interest in domestic violence has become a challenge for at least one facility for battered women in the Valley.

Betty Fisher, the director of Haven Hills, finds that all of a sudden she is in demand for newspaper and television interviews.

And, while she says she is grateful to be able to provide what information she can to raise the consciousness of the public, she hopes the issue doesn’t become the sociological flavor of the week.

“It’s been an uphill battle to get the public and legal system to take the issue seriously. The victims of domestic violence have often become the victims of public indifference too,” Fisher says.

As a 17-year veteran in the war against domestic violence, she knows this subject well. She has been director of Haven Hills for the past three years.

According to Fisher, Haven Hills is the only nonprofit local facility offering drop-in counseling for women as well as a shelter for battered women and their children. To ensure client safety, the agency does not publicize its address.

She says about 300 women who have been in, or are still in, violent domestic situations come in for counseling each year. More than 360 people--two-thirds of them children--are offered housing in the shelter each year.

Both Fisher and Haven Hills counselor Barbara Fultan say the airing of Nicole Brown Simpson’s 911 calls has provoked an emotional response in many of their clients.

Some women feel that at last their situation is legitimized and they feel empowered. They feel the seriousness of their situation has been underlined, Fisher and Fulton say.

Other battered women are experiencing great anxiety after hearing the 911 tapes, perhaps reliving their own feelings of helplessness and fear, the counselors say.

Fultan says the most positive outcome of the fallout from the Simpson tragedy is the impact it has had on some of the battering husbands.

Several women, whose husbands had been in denial about their battering, have agreed to go into counseling. She does not know if they will follow through, however.

Director Fisher says it is her hope that the courts will now take a closer look at the way in which domestic violence is dealt with.

“We’ve seen progress in the way the police treat the problem, but the court system has been slower in coming along,” Fisher says.

Book Giveaway Today Marks Final Chapter for Bookstore

The bad news is Book Castle in Burbank is going out of business at 10 tonight.

It’s the pits for anyone who loved to wander through this bare-bones treasure trove of about 1 million used books and magazines where you could often see celebrities such as Richard Crenna, Armand Assanti, Roddy McDowell and author Larry McMurtry searching for a particular book.

The good news is that after several weeks of marking down their book prices, today they are giving the remaining books away for free.

“People won’t find many signed first editions or art books,” says manager Malcolm Macdonald. “The dealers have come in and pretty well stripped us of that kind of thing,” he says.

He adds that there are still about 200,000 books and magazines waiting this Fourth of July for a new home, and anyone who shows up at the store at the corner of San Fernando Boulevard and Orange Grove Avenue with boxes may cart them away.

“We’ve alerted librarians and other institutions to come and help themselves to whatever they need for their own libraries,” says Macdonald, adding that most of them have already come and gone.

“Today is strictly for individual book lovers,” says Macdonald.

He expects the shelves to be just about bare by 10 p.m.

Overheard

“Barkley hides now when I try to put his leash on so I can go outside and walk him. He’d rather explode than leave the air conditioning for that heat.” Woman in Encino to friend on phone talking about her beagle’s reaction to the hot weather.