Simple Pleasures Are Easy Pickings in Quiet Home Acres : Communities: Residents southwest of Moorpark guard their independence and their breathing room in the face of urban sprawl.

Morning breaks in Home Acres with the neighing of horses and a rooster’s call.

The heavy morning air keeps the dust down as Ron Warne, practicing for an upcoming rodeo competition, cuts his horse around a back-yard corral on Hitch Boulevard. Up on Ternez Drive, Julie Willett feeds the horses she keeps at her mother’s home, preparing herself for a day of giving riding lessons. And on Citrus Drive, Michele Weise, contemplating her next painting, takes in the morning light, studying the muted tones of brown and varied hues of green on a distant hillside.

Home Acres is composed of about 200 homes along seven narrow streets on the southwest side of Moorpark just off California 118.

Although it is also known as Moorpark Home Acres, the 70-year-old community is not part of the city.

Before Moorpark incorporated in 1983, residents in Home Acres cast a straw poll voting overwhelmingly against incorporation.

“Only one resident voted for it,” said Jean Tufts, who has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years. “We never found out who that was.”

Because the opposition was so strong, leaders from other neighborhoods decided not to include Home Acres in the vote for incorporation--fearing it would doom the effort.

“I’m sure it would have,” Tufts said. “It was a really close vote.”

Like many of those who moved to the quiet neighborhood, Tufts and her husband came here to flee the growth enveloping the San Fernando Valley. Since moving in, they’ve done everything in their power to keep development at bay and protect the rustic, out-of-the-way neighborhood from encroaching civilization.

Home Acres has changed very little in the past decade, while neighboring Moorpark has more than tripled in size.

When Home Acres was first subdivided in the 1920s into lots of one, five and 10 acres, nearby farmers complained that the planned homes were far too close together. Today, with Moorpark’s tract homes in full view on the surrounding ridgelines, the neighborhood relishes its open space.

Over the years, homes were built, rebuilt and added to, creating a makeshift, funky mosaic of styles.

Converted mobile homes sit next to onetime farmers’ shacks and new ranch- style homes are beside bungalows that are half a century old.

Since the community lies in the unincorporated portion of Ventura County, the rules here are a bit looser. Homes don’t always conform to a set style, and codes don’t seem to be strictly enforced.

The old trucks, cars and rusted appliances that rest in a few overgrown yards helped Home Acres earn the nickname “Dogpatch.”

“I heard one county person refer to it that way,” Tufts said. “But this is one place where you can be an individual and it’s OK.

“There’s no homeowners association telling you what kind of trees to plant, or what color to paint your house, or that the swing set in your back yard is too high. Here, we live and let live.”

And it has been that way for a while.

The land that makes up Home Acres had been part of a ranch, but poor soil and a chance to make a buck prompted the owner to break up the property and sell it as build-it-yourself homesteads.

Herbert Wangeman, 86, who now lives in Ventura, remembers moving to Home Acres as a boy in the 1920s soon after the plots of land came on the market.

It cost about $100 an acre back then, and his father bought 10 acres. The house came later.

“Everybody just built their own homes,” he recalled.

Soon after the landowner sold the last lot, the Depression hit and most of Home Acres’ residents were making ends meet by selling vegetables from back-yard gardens.

Wangeman’s father worked as a bus driver and janitor for Moorpark High School and augmented his income by growing tomatoes, which the family sold in Los Angeles.

“You did what you had to do to get by,” he said.

Florence Dawson, 75, whose brother lived in Home Acres during the 1930s, remembers going out and planting potatoes there one night.

“My brother heard something about potatoes growing better if they were planted by the light of the moon,” Dawson said. “Actually he did get a pretty good crop that year.”

People moved to Home Acres mostly because they couldn’t afford to live in town, she said.

“Money separates people,” she said. “Even if you didn’t have much money, you could still afford to move to Home Acres.”

Although the neighborhood has become a bit more affluent since then--with professionals who commute to jobs in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley--it still contains its share of working stiffs.

George Bump, 80, who moved into his wood-frame home on Citrus Drive 35 years ago, has been a Fuller Brush salesman for the past 20 years. Before that, he was an engineer and mathematician for the Northrop Corp.

Bump and his wife, Lilo, 64, think their modest home, which is stuffed with books, could be between 40 and 50 years old, but they are not too sure.

They moved to Home Acres because it was isolated and they could afford it.

With a good acre of land and kindly neighbors, their home became a great place to raise their five children, Lilo said.

“We had two kids when we got here and we had three more after that,” she said. “They had plenty of room to play, and plenty of room to raise animals, too.”

Proudly stating that all five of her children attended college on full scholarships, Lilo Bump said the neighborhood was great for raising her kids.

Jean Conrad, who lives a few doors down with her 10-year-old son, Forbes, and her husband, agreed.

After her son finished practicing his banjo and before he picked up his mandolin, violin and other assorted instruments, Conrad led a tour of the family’s overgrown herb garden and chicken coop in the back of the house.

The family moved from a large tract home in Camarillo to their 700-square-foot house in Home Acres eight years ago.

“I’m so glad we moved here,” she said.

The airy home was a former farmer’s shack that was transported up the hill, Conrad said.

The neighborhood, she said, “is the pinnacle of eccentricity. And if Forbes wants to head into civilization, he just has to hop on his bike.”

Civilization, where most residents must go for groceries or to attend school, is Moorpark.

The two communities are separated by a small park with gates on both sides--a kind of no man’s land akin to Checkpoint Charlie before the Berlin Wall came down.

A road cuts through the park, but gates prevent it from being used except by emergency vehicles. The park is open to foot traffic and bicycles.

On one side lie seemingly endless rows of the Mountain Meadows development featuring streets with about 18 townhomes per acre, as well as streets with two large, upscale homes for every acre.

On the other side of the park is Home Acres with its overgrown yards and its patchwork pattern of older homes--a little less orderly but brimming with space and character.

“Why would someone pay all that money to get a house that’s just like their neighbor’s?” asked Cathy Larson, who lives in Home Acres just a few blocks from the park. “I would never do that.”

Larson said her family moved to the neighborhood 10 years ago because it was perfect for keeping and riding horses. Their home on the edge of the community abuts an isolated canyon, where the family sometimes rides.

Nearby is a spot where the local Boy Scout troop comes to camp.

“It’s great to be living out in the country,” she said. “We’re real lucky.”