Mulholland Drive a Landmark of Spirit

Thirty years ago, my friends and I rode our Stingrays south into the Santa Monica Mountains above Tarzana as far as the pavement would take us. Then we’d ditch the bicycles next to white wooden barriers and continue hiking up and up through chaparral toward Mulholland Drive on a search that never ended.

Indian caves. We knew they were up there. Someone’s friend’s brother’s Scoutmaster had said so. We’d look and look until it got dark, and then we’d troop back, gossiping and shoving each other like the 7-year-olds we were as we climbed aboard our banana-shaped seats.

Tomorrow, we promised. We’d find them tomorrow.

Perhaps those caves still lie hidden behind some ancient coastal scrub, but they are not the only artifact of the past that draws hundreds toward the crest of the Santa Monicas every day. History has rolled over that dun-colored ridgeline in waves, each layering on new meaning, mystery and cryptic magic.

Last week, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy recognized the ridgeline’s place in the annals of America by nominating the dirt road that snakes along it for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

Can a dirt road be a landmark? Scholars in Washington, D. C., and Sacramento were amused and intrigued at the suggestion.

“That would be quite unusual, if not unique,” said Paul Lusignan, the historian who ultimately decides such things at the National Register. Not really unique. Out of 64,000 registered historic places in America, though, just 100 to 200 are roads, and fewer than 10% of those are dirt, like sections of the Oregon Trail.

But back here, mountain folks from Griffith Park to Topanga Canyon know Mulholland’s grand history real and true. It is a landmark of the spirit, if nothing else.

Over the coming year, the conservancy has plans to create two parks that will allow more people to imbibe that spirit--by completing a vision for ridgeline recreation first formulated eight decades ago.

William Mulholland, the pioneering chief water engineer of Los Angeles, proposed building a scenic parkway from the Cahuenga Pass to Calabasas in 1913. After private fund raising and the floating of a $1-million bond, construction ended 11 years later. Then it was all dirt--decomposed granite, six inches deep, to be exact--and 24 miles long. Granite or no, they still call it a “dirt” road.

Residential development and paving trucks encroached swiftly from the east, and more slowly from the west, until in the 1960s just nine miles of unpaved road remained.

The conservancy’s goal is to preserve that sliver of a memory of a time long ago. National Register status would not prevent further development or paving. It’s only an honor. But it would act as one more tool for conservationists who attempt to block development at every turn.

“You can see how government today is scrambling for dollars, just selling the family jewels,” said Alan Kishbaugh, a past president of the Hillside Federation, an advocacy group. “We’ve got to save the city from itself. Holding that land sacred has been the dream of a lot of people.”

Peter Heumann is one such dreamer. A mortgage banker who lives in Calabasas, he rides his mountain bike on the dirt up there a few times a week, and leads trail-building efforts for the activist Concerned Off-Road Bicyclists Assn. He sees it as a psychological balm to our divided city.

“This is the one part of Los Angeles that brings together the Valley and the Westside,” he said.

“There are no status symbols up here. Just the closest thing you can get to a backcountry experience in the middle of any major urban area in the country. We bring inner-city kids up there on tours. Do you think they enjoy it any differently than someone on a $50,000 Arabian horse or a $3,000 mountain bike? The mountains are a special resource, and they must be preserved.”

Few real threats remain, but just west of Brentwood’s tony Mandeville Canyon, the Los Angeles County Sanitation District still holds title to gorgeous Sullivan and Rustic canyons. The waste department’s battle to use them as landfills has lasted decades. If successful, the district would turn some of dirt Mulholland into a paved and straightened route for trash trucks.

It’s an unlikely scenario, but one that visibly pains John Diaz, land acquisition chief at the conservancy and the person responsible for nominating Mulholland as a historic place.

On a recent afternoon, he stuck both arms out due east while standing on the road above a park he’s helping to build at the crest of Reseda Boulevard. He invited a visitor to do the same.

“It’s rush hour, and you can’t hear a thing up here--just birds and a few insects,” Diaz said. “And do you feel the breeze on your arms? Do you feel the cool breeze coming from the south? That’s the coastal flow. And do you feel the warm breeze from the north? That’s the desert flow. You see, you can even feel that Mulholland is the demarcation between ecosystems--between encroachment and the wilds, between the present and the past.”

In the park under construction--formerly known as Reseda Ridge, but soon to be renamed Big Sky Gateway--the conservancy bowed to City Councilwoman Rita Walters’ demand that it provide a transition environment for city dwellers who don’t own a mountain bike or hiking shoes.

Commanding a jaw-dropping view of the San Fernando Valley, it will be the first formal northern entrance to the 18,000 acres of state parkland south of Mulholland known as the Big Wild. In a fit of incongruity for the mountains, it will have a lawn, toilets, wheelchair paths and 300 oak and walnut trees.

A local homeowners group that helped to preserve the land, called Caballero Canyon, from development in the first place has sued the conservancy over the planting of those non-native species. The move offends Diaz and his colleagues, who note that the $1-million park is only covering up a previously graded hillside that had become an illegal dump.

“This makes the park a boon to the greatest number of people,” Diaz said. “I can see many people getting a complete park experience here over several visits before venturing up to find out what the backcountry is like.”

Indeed, mountain advocates like to point out that 90% of Los Angeles’ residents live within 15 miles of Mulholland Drive. The fear that all will decide to visit at once is the problem.

“I see a lot of pinpoint vandalism,” said Sky Atchison, deputy director of park acquisition and construction at the conservancy. “In Topanga Canyon, neighbors are constantly tearing down signs pointing to the Entrada Road entrance to the state park.”

Such problems don’t seem to darken Atchison’s mood for long, for he is himself engrossed in a new mission to preserve the hills’ curious contribution to Cold War history.

From the late 1950s until 1964, the U.S. Army had a Nike missile command post at one of Mulholland’s highest points.

Its mission: Watch for Soviet bombers over the horizon on radar, and coordinate the launching of Nike missiles from bases in the Sepulveda Basin and the surrounding mountains to destroy the bombers.

Atchison climbed to the top of the old watchtower to explain that the park will attempt to re-create the experience of visiting old Nike site 96C with hardware and interpretive panels.

“We’ll restore the guard gate, put back the high fence and old signage, restore the pathways and preserve almost all the old metal,” he said, silhouetted before a splendid, 360-degree view of Los Angeles. “We won’t hide the past, just accentuate it. It’s not ugly. It’s real.”

Restoration plans have come and gone since 1981 for the base, but a recent $900,000 grant will let the conservancy build its new San Vincente Mountain Park--complete with a 24-hour ranger station--by next summer.

Not that people like Jason Minton really care.

The 25-year-old from Thousand Oaks had a free morning before work on Thursday, and had just driven his Honda up to enjoy the views, the heat and the serenity.

Unaware of land-use battles, park politics or the ghosts of thermonuclear war, Minton reminded me of the days I rode my Stingray up to the hills just to get away from my sisters and homework.

Staring into the chaparral above Rustic Canyon, he also offered the most poignant possible defense for the road’s preservation.

“Nice, quiet place to walk around,” he said.

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New Parks on Mulholland

The nine-mile stretch of Mulholland Drive that has remained unpaved for 70 years has been nominated for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. Two parks along the route are planned: Big Sky Gateway Park, atop Reseda Boulevard, will open in August. San Vicente Mountain Park, at an old Nike missile control base, will open by next summer.

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National Register of Historic Places: Valley Sites

* Antelope Valley Indian Museum

15701 East Ave.

Lancaster

* Bolton Hall

10116 Commerce Ave.

Tujunga

* Cedar Avenue Complex

44843 Cedar Ave.

Lancaster

* James Daniel Derby House

2535 E. Chevy Chase Drive

Glendale

* Leonis Adobe

23537 Calabasas Road

Calabasas

* Lopez Adobe

1100 Pico St.

San Fernando

* Old Santa Susana Stage Road

Chatsworth

* Minnie Hill Palmer House

Chatsworth Park South

Chatsworth

* Romulo Pico Adobe

10940 Sepulveda Blvd.

Mission Hills

* Rancho El Encino

16756 Moorpark St.

Encino

* Rancho San Rafael

Bonita Drive

Glendale

* U.S. Post Office--Burbank Downtown

125 E. Olive Ave.

Burbank

* U.S. Post Office--Glendale Main

313 E. Broadway

Glendale

* L.A. Library--Van Nuys Branch

14553 Sylvan Way

Van Nuys

* Vasquez Rocks

Agua Dulce Canyon Road

Agua Dulce

* Well No. 4, Pico Canyon Oil Field

West of Interstate 5

Newhall