Weekday Getaway : Chatsworth Lake Residents Avoid Congestion of City Life

The narrow, bumpy streets are glorified trails that dip and wind and dead-end abruptly. Many of them are posted with ominous signs that warn outsiders to “Keep Out, Private Road.” Yards are cluttered with a life’s collection of stuff. Cannibalized cars and trucks dot lots. Barking dogs are often the only signs of life.

You have entered Chatsworth Lake, an enclave 10 minutes west of Chatsworth that straddles the Ventura-Los Angeles County line. If time didn’t completely forget the place, it’s at least a few hours behind the rest of the world.

Cable television is available, but not natural gas or a sewer system. There is one small market, but no gas station. There are no sidewalks and few street lights.

And that is why folks live here.

“I moved here to get away from all the b.s. down below,” said Julius Seregi, 71, who moved to the area in the late 1950s. “As long as people don’t bother me, I don’t bother them.”

“I just love it here,” said Candece Deanne, 27, an art student who moved here four years ago. “It’s away from the city. It’s very quiet. You don’t hear any car noises or police sirens. It’s like being out in the country, but yet the city is really close.”

The eclectic nature of Chatsworth Lake--which lies just north of the now dry Chatsworth Lake Reservoir and south of Simi Valley--is seen in its people, houses and cars.

It’s a place for families with children, as well as members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club. Modern $200,000 multistory homes are next door to 50-year-old ramshackle buildings. Ford Broncos are parked alongside faded pickup trucks with cracked, deflated tires.

Residents have named streets after loved ones, such as Sara Lynn Drive and Ida Place, while others have sought to make a statement with their street names, such as My Way Lane and Corvette Lane.

“It’s a unique area,” said Los Angeles County Fire Engineer Duane Swanson, who has been based at Fire Station 75 on Lake Manor Drive in the heart of the community since 1981. “They are canyon people just like those who live in Topanga Canyon or Kagel Canyon.”

Although most folks here keep to themselves, three years ago residents rallied together to persuade Los Angeles County supervisors not to close their fire station as part of proposed budget cuts. The station also serves the Ventura County side of the community, even though emergency calls are handled through a Ventura County fire dispatcher.

The neighborhood was founded in the 1920s as a weekend getaway spot. Lots were subdivided into tiny 25-by-70-foot parcels suitable for cabins and sold for as little as $25, according to an old sales brochure that called the area Chatsworth Lake View Place and Chatsworth Highland Springs at that time. The area has also been called Lake Manor.

The brochure gave directions to the site as “Hollywood to Sherman Way in Lankershim, follow the Pacific Electric tracks to Owensmouth, turn right at railroad station to Chatsworth or until you see our signs.”

Howard Shirley’s father bought a lot in 1927, and Shirley himself moved there permanently 15 years ago.

“My dad bought the land when I was 9,” Shirley, now 76, recalled. “It was totally country, full of brush and rattlesnakes and rabbits. I still love it up here. We’re above the smog, and we can look down over the orange blanket. It’s always been marvelous for fresh air and sunshine.”

In the early years, the area was a rustic getaway for actors working on location shooting Westerns. Water filled Chatsworth Lake back then, and the celebrities could enjoy it in privacy.

The area remained mostly undeveloped through the 1970s, inhabited “mostly by outlaws and artists,” according to real estate agent Bob Wood, who lives in Box Canyon and has sold property in the area since 1979.

Wood said that newer homes began popping up on empty lots in the 1980s.

During the building boom, many of the small lots were combined to accommodate larger houses for more affluent residents. Currently, there are about 500 homes with about 2,000 residents.

For some unexplained reason, residents here seem to collect inoperable cars. Some people cover them and park them in their yards. But others, lacking space, just keep them on the street.

Deanne owns four old Mercedes-Benz sedans, but only one runs. The others line the street. “My friend and I were going to work on them, but we just haven’t got around to do it,” she said.

Some longtime residents are not happy with the new neighborhood growth, complaining that it has destroyed the peaceful nature of the community.

One 26-year resident of the area, who asked that her name not be used, complained that traffic takes a shortcut through the neighborhood because the city of Los Angeles never built a Valley Circle Boulevard detour out of her community.

Still, most residents find Chatsworth Lake still to be the quiet getaway advertised in 1927.

“There is no graffiti, there are no drive-bys, there is virtually no crime,” Wood said. “And it is not a problem that the roads are bumpy because they keep out the outsiders.”

Staff photographer Perry Riddle contributed to this story.