Rounding Up Inspiration : The Heaven on Earth Ranch in Lake View Terrace gives disabled children and adults a chance to experience a touch of the Old West.

It may not look like much, this dusty little acre that’s a hubcap toss from the Foothill Freeway. But for some, the Heaven on Earth Ranch is a unique place.

It’s where many disabled children and adults touch a horse, take their first carriage ride and listen to stories about the Old West. The ranch’s proprietor, retired stuntman and actor Johny Carpenter, works here almost daily, keeping it up for those who visit.

“They get to play around here like puppy dogs and just have a good time,” said Carpenter, 80, of North Hollywood.

Teachers and social services directors call him year-round to organize field trips to the ranch, which features Western storefronts, wagons and, of course, horses.

Besides the school visits, he hosts children and disabled adults for regular Thanksgiving and Christmas parties. At a party two years ago, he arranged for a group of children with cerebral palsy to take a flight around the L. A. basin in a DC-3 aircraft owned by a friend.

Carpenter is adamant about never asking for money from the schools or groups that visit. All they get are invitations to return. The ranch is maintained by Carpenter’s labor, what he can spare from his Social Security check and the occasional donation.

“Johny offers these children an experience they can’t get elsewhere,” said Sylvia Rhoades, a teacher at the Braddock School in Culver City. “You can take them to a Western attraction like Knott’s Berry Farm, but it’s a stylized, ‘Hollywood’ version. At Johny’s ranch, the Western experience is real.”

Rhoades’ students are in a readiness program for kindergarten, and many lack basic language and social skills.

“There have been many cases where a student is emotionally disturbed and very introverted,” she said. “Johny seems to gravitate to the child most in need, and usually he or she will open up and talk and laugh freely.”

Born and raised in Arkansas, Carpenter assumed he was heading for a career in baseball as a youth. But at 18, while on his way to a tryout for the Chicago White Sox, he was struck by a hit-and-run driver. He was left with a severely mangled left leg, a broken back, head injuries, internal bleeding and little chance for recovery. He spent four months in a body cast before he was strong enough to leave the hospital.

The experience left him with metal screws and plates in his leg and head, crutches he had to use for eight years, and insight into what it means not to be able to take care of yourself.

“It made me appreciate the things in life we usually take for granted,” he said.

Riding horses gave Carpenter more mobility and helped strengthen his leg, so he began to ride regularly. In 1940, he came to California and his riding skills attracted interest from film studios. He started stunt riding in cowboy movies. One of his most memorable roles was in “National Velvet,” in which he rode his horse through the steeplechase course in a race scene.

At the time, Carpenter owned a small ranch near Griffith Park, and one day a group of blind musicians approached him and said they’d like to ride horses. “I told them I didn’t know how a blind person could be taught to ride. But they were persistent and I finally put them on four old, slow horses and walked around the corral with them. They loved it.”

The blind men came regularly and became skilled enough to ride jumping horses. “As word got out, I had more blind and disabled people wanting to ride, so I just taught them,” Carpenter said.

He began getting so much interest from schools that he leased a five-acre plot in Lake View Terrace in 1969 and called it Heaven on Earth Ranch. With help from movie-industry friends, community leaders and even off-duty Los Angeles police officers, Carpenter built a realistic “Old West” town, complete with a saloon, general store and jail. Stuntmen donated their time to put on a show for visiting groups with Carpenter playing along.

For years, Carpenter took care of the ranch, coordinating the arrival of groups of children and adults and receiving accolades for his work. His office is filled with awards and honors, signed photos and letters from presidents, governors, mayors and celebrities.

Then in 1993, the owner of the ranch property evicted Carpenter with a plan to develop the property.

Slowed by his age, his lingering injuries and the grind of stretching to pay the expenses, Carpenter might have rounded up his horses and ridden off into the sunset. But, he said, “I didn’t want to give up entertaining these kids.”

He moved his horses and Western paraphernalia three times before finding the ranch’s current site last June. As visitors arrive, they rush over to the carriages, wagons, horses and storefronts. Those in wheelchairs park and take in the atmosphere, while Carpenter holds court answering questions and telling stories. If there’s time, he serves lunch from a genuine chuck wagon.

Guests are “allowed just to be themselves,” said Don Foley, a therapist with the United Cerebral Palsy Spastic Children’s Foundation.

Foley has taken children and adults to the Heaven on Earth Ranch for years, and he continues to be impressed by Carpenter’s fortitude.

“He’s always been a giving man, and he’s usually broke because of it. But with what little he has he goes out of his way to make sure everyone has a good time.”

“I never planned on doing this, it just kind of happened,” said Carpenter. “I’ve entertained hundreds of thousands over the years and I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.”

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WHERE TO GO

What: Heaven on Earth Ranch.

Location: 11427 Osborne Place, Lake View Terrace.

Call: Johny Carpenter, (818) 766-4510.