Parted Waters : Lake Hughes Residents Divided Between Love of Quiet, Pursuit of Fun

Don Arnett likes what’s in his back yard.

Stretching out from his one-story home is an immaculate lawn of bright green grass, with a stone patio table to one side. At the end of the lawn is a short, rock retaining wall and then a lake.

The lake is calm and scenic. The fluttering of wings and the amiable honking of its native ducks are the loudest sounds.

“My favorite thing is when the moon comes up over one side of the lake or down the other,” said Arnett, 64. “It’s like a million diamonds in the summertime.”

Shell Gossmann likes what’s in his back yard.

From his wooden cabin, he can see a collection of trailers and mobile homes that belong to the neighbors. His yard is partly paved with concrete, but it’s mostly mud. A stream runs through it.

At the end of yard is the lake. A group of children laughed as they tramped through the shallow water, splashing each other. Earlier that day, a group of Gossmann’s friends borrowed his motorboat for a rip-roaring, ear-splitting ride across the water.

“I wouldn’t live anyplace else,” said Gossmann, 48.

Trouble is, both Arnett and Gossmann live on the same lake--Lake Hughes, deep in the Angeles National Forest. Although the lake is only about 60 acres in size, it’s home to two distinct groups. On one hand there is Arnett, representative of retirees and others who came to the area for the peace and quiet of a high desert lake in a fairly remote area.

On the other is Gossmann, a member of a younger set that also came to the lake to get away from city life. But to them, country living also includes raucous good times with gasoline-powered boats and weekends of partying.

Even though the Arnett set tends to live on the north side of the lake and Gossmann’s cohorts mostly live on the south, it’s inevitable that they bump heads at times.

Just that day, someone called the cops on Gossmann’s friends in the motor boat, complaining that they were going more than 5 m.p.h., the unofficial lake speed limit.

“They get tight jaws if they see you out on the lake having fun,” said Gossmann. “It’s ridiculous.”

Just three years ago the focus of the bickering in this community--which has the same name as the lake--was essentially nonexistent. In the midst of the early 1990s drought, Lake Hughes simply dried up.

“When I first moved here, the lake was completely dry,” said Gossmann, who relocated from Burbank in 1991. “You could ride a bicycle across it.”

Normal rainfall in the last couple of years brought the lake back to its former glory, and it again became the center of activity and concern for people who had moved here.

“The whole area has undergone a change,” said Larry Martin, 43, owner of Papa’s General Store, one of two Lake Hughes markets. “It used to be just a few families living up here all the time and lots of people who would visit on the weekends. Now it’s just like any other suburb.”

“I grew up here and there were 10 families here full-time in 1969,” Martin continued. “Now there are probably 650 homes occupied all the time.”

Up from the lake, a patchwork of homes now covers the hills, from sprawling ranches to run-down shacks. The community might have grown rapidly, but it retains its small town, everyone-knows-everyone feeling.

Visitors are quickly noticed, and those out for a stroll can tell whose property they’re near by which dogs are barking at them.

The lake is owned by everyone who lives here. Indeed, technically it is owned by everyone in the United States, even though only a choice few citizens have access to it.

“It’s kind of a jurisdictional nightmare out there,” said Shawna Bautista, wildlife biologist for the U. S. Forest Service’s Saugus Ranger District. “The Forest Service owns the lake below the high water mark--essentially we own the water. However, about 99% of the shoreline is privately owned.”

The Forest Service has final authority over Lake Hughes, but Bautista said she knew of no current, official restrictions on how the lake may be used. She was also not aware of any complaints over uses of the lake.

“To date, to my knowledge, we have not been contacted about any problems,” Bautista said.

And that is perhaps the way it should be. The issues dividing the residents of Lake Hughes more concern lifestyle than legalities.

Arnett and his friends are content to soak up the solitude and beauty, watching the water lap against low rock walls bordering their yards. They think of themselves, proudly, as the old guard. “Some people found out about this place a few years ago,” said one woman who, like many interviewed for this article, asked her name be withheld. “They would come tearing through here with their jet skis.

“It’s not a public lake. We don’t want people coming to use it that way.”

Gossmann and friends revel in motor sports. One of his most fondly remembered weekends up here was when an entire college football team came to the lake, drinking and partying nonstop.

“These (older) people have a picture postcard for their back yard and they figure it’s always supposed to be that way,” said one of Gossmann’s cohorts, who requested anonymity.

“You’re telling me this lake was just here for a duck toilet? I’m not buying it.”

The only thing both groups can agree upon is that they both love the lake and celebrate its return. Old-timers and new residents alike can rely on the fact that although historically the lake has had its stretches of downtime, it is never terminally dry.

“Let’s say you have a new Harley and you crash it,” said Gossmann. “It’s going to be in the shop for a while, but you know you’re going to get it back.”

“The lake’s reliable,” said Gossmann, savoring the analogy. “It’s always going to come back.”