AT HOME : Where Families, Nature Thrive : Moorpark: Affordable homes, a ‘Leave It to Beaver’ aura, clean air and rolling hills draw families.
When Jeff Miller and his family moved from San Francisco to Moorpark last year, they had “reverse sticker shock.”
“In San Francisco, we could not afford to buy a house,” Miller said. As an added minus, the couple were afraid to let their young daughter venture alone outside the family’s apartment.
And so when Jeff, 45, and his wife, Anne, 41, decided to move to Moorpark after he became the associate director of housing at Cal State Northridge, they were happily surprised. “It was like, hello, we can buy a house,” he said.
In the Mountain Meadows subdivision of Moorpark, a town of just less than 30,000 in southeast Ventura County, the Millers found a 2,800-square-foot, 7-year-old home with a tile roof and four bedrooms for $240,000.
One evening at twilight, watching Kari, 8, skate around the cul-de-sac outside the family’s new home, Jeff Miller turned to his wife and said: “The only thing missing is a strand of pearls and you’d be Barbara Billingsley,” who played June Cleaver, mother of the Beaver, in “Leave It to Beaver.”
That “Leave It to Beaver” aura is one attraction that brings buyers to Moorpark, said Debbie Rodgers Teasley, a real estate agent and manager with Coldwell Banker Town and Country in Moorpark.
“They want the small-town feeling they grew up with,” said Teasley, who is also the president of the Moorpark Chamber of Commerce. “We’re still at one grocery store. We’re going to two, and it’s going to be a huge, major event when we do.”
According to Carlyn Paterson, an agent with Re-Max Distinctive, “Moorpark is still small enough that you can walk down the street and see someone you know and say ‘Hi.’ ”
Newcomers to Moorpark, mostly families with children, are also drawn by the schools--including the 5-year-old high school--which consistently produce students ranking above average in academic achievements and by Moorpark College.
Despite its almost Midwest reputation, Moorpark is less than 50 miles from Los Angeles and a few miles north of Thousand Oaks and is served by the new Metrolink rail line. Many are charmed by the quaint downtown with its old brick buildings, gnarled California pepper trees and the Magnificent Moorpark Melodrama and Vaudeville Co. Others come for the clean air and rolling hills that surround the community.
“I took a walk the other day, and you’re in nature instantly,” said Julia Felker, 38, who moved to Moorpark five years ago with her husband, Steve Rasmussen, an auto mechanic, and their two children, Wesley, 14, and Rebecca, 11.
“We see a lot of nature here,” said Felker, a dance teacher and choreographer. She has spotted coyotes, hawks, turkey vultures and road runners in the area.
Previously, the family lived on more than an acre in nearby Simi Valley. However, Felker said, “the entire neighborhood was being turned into apartments and condos.”
In the Campus Hills section of Moorpark, the family “got a deal” on a new two-story house with three bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths. With upgrades, they paid $232,000.
Moorpark is divided, geographically and psychologically, into several distinct areas. Tucked into the northeast section of town is Campus Hills, which grew up around the college. In the center of Moorpark is downtown, near the railroad area from which the town blossomed in the early 1900s and where the refurbished old homes of the town’s founders still stand. In the southwest corner are the Mountain Meadows and Peach Hill developments by California Community Builders of Santa Monica. On the outskirts are ranch and horse properties.
The median home price in Moorpark is about $225,000, with prices ranging from less than $150,000 for a smaller, older home to more than $400,000 for the new 4,000-square-foot homes in the Mountain Meadows subdivision called the Deauvilles. Eighty percent of the dwellings are owner-occupied.
Pam Castro, who moved to Moorpark in 1956 when she was 2 years old, lives in the downtown area with her husband, Steve Castro, a school teacher in Simi Valley. His family was among Moorpark’s original settlers. The couple owns P.S. 4 Kids, a preschool that serves 84 families.
Pam Castro spent six years on the Moorpark School Board and was its president, quitting when her children “vehemently protested” the time it took her away from home. “I’m a mommy,” she said.
The preschool is run from the home of Steve’s parents, who built their house when they first married. Ten years ago, Pam and Steve were able to buy a three-bedroom house on an adjacent property for $248,000. They live there with their three children, Ana-Alicia, 10, Alejandro, almost 12, and Antonio, 21, a recent graduate of Moorpark College who is bound for Arizona State University.
For a while, Pam Castro was dismayed by what longtime residents call “the boom,” from 1983 to 1989, when Moorpark’s population rocketed from 8,000 to 25,000. During that time, people living in Moorpark’s subdivisions for only seven or eight months were running for City Council. “But they didn’t know the city,” Castro said. “They didn’t know the people.”
Today, the “booming and growing are leveling off,” Castro said. “There’s a lot more cooperation. A lot more understanding.” In fact, in the latest City Council election, there were no contenders.
“We are content,” she said. “All the issues are being addressed.”
Besides slowing down the population boom by tightening up on building permits, city leaders have focused on bringing “clean industry” into Moorpark to create a solid tax base, chamber president Teasley said. Major employers include Kavlico, an aerospace and auto electronics company that employs 800, and Litton Data Systems, which employs 500. Still, Moorpark is largely considered a bedroom community, with most wage-earning residents commuting to jobs in larger cities.
A few years back, crime was a big concern as gangs in Southern California became more prevalent throughout the 1980s. However, three years ago, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, which Moorpark contracts with for policing, declared a “zero tolerance” policy for gang members.
“If they’re involved in a crime, they aren’t cut any slack,” said Sgt. Rick Hindman, who works in Moorpark. “We hold them accountable for every violation of the law.”
Thanks to these and other efforts, including lots of Neighborhood Watch programs, “Moorpark has the lowest overall crime rate in Ventura County,” Hindman said, adding the county has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation.
“It’s still a small town, but we’re growing too fast,” said Martin Hernandez, 60, a maintenance supervisor and father of four adult daughters. He has lived in Moorpark off and on since he was 10.
“It was like a pool of natives trying to build up the small town,” Hernandez said of his growing-up years in Moorpark. “Everybody knew everybody and everybody helped each other.”
If he were mayor, Hernandez said, he would concentrate on diverting the traffic that flows off the Simi Valley Freeway and zooms through the center of Moorpark on its way to Ventura, Fillmore and points north.
Hernandez would also encourage more retail stores to open so that consumer dollars would stay in town, and he would allocate money for more youth sports programs.
Showing a visitor around Moorpark, Hernandez pointed out the agricultural roots of his town, which was named after the Moorpark apricot trees that once filled grove after grove.
“There were all walnut trees on this side,” Hernandez said, driving through the town’s industrial center. “And apricot trees on this side.”
On Nov. 12, 1957, when Hernandez was a young man of 22, Moorpark made history by becoming the first community in the United States to be entirely lighted by nuclear electricity from a plant in nearby Santa Susana Canyon. The event was chronicled by CBS’s Edward R. Murrow and a television crew from New York.
Passing through the older part of town, waving at friends, Hernandez explained that he bought his dad’s old house. Back in 1926, the house cost $400. Recently it was appraised at $125,000.
Last year, Hernandez talked about how his daughters and sons-in-law were anxious to leave Moorpark for greater horizons. Today, however, Hernandez and his wife, Isabel, are busy helping the daughters and their husbands buy houses in Moorpark and Simi Valley.
“People still know each other and help each other,” he said of his hometown. “It’s still here.”
After all, Hernandez said, “you always come back to your roots.”
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At a Glance
Population
1994 estimate: 28,754
1990-94 change: +12.8%
Annual income
Per capita: 21,312
Median household: 64,718
Household distribution
Less than $30,000: 10.6%
$30,000 - $60,000: 28.3%
$60,000 - $100,000: 42.9%
$100,000 - $150,000: 14.8%
$150,000 +: 3.5%
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Moorpark Heights Home Sale Data
Sample Size: (for 10-year period): 1,396
Ave. home size (square feet): 1,513
Ave. Year Built: 1976
Ave. No. Bedrms: 3.18
Ave. No. Baths: 2.05
Pool: 5%
View homes: 3%
Central air: 27%
Floodzone: 61%
Price Range (1994-95): $57,000-375,000
Predominant Value: $174,000
Age Range: 6-93 years
Predominant Age: 16 years
*
Average Sales Data
*--*
Year Total $ per Median Sales sq. ft. price 1995* 44 $123.64 $195,409 1994 124 $120.63 $174,431 1993 78 $123.76 $201,237 1992 98 $135.78 $199,081 1991 110 $133.68 $218,890 1990 107 $144.64 $204,387 1989 158 $151.13 $206,395 1988 362 $116.36 $166,419 1987 217 $98.38 $143,346 1986 98 $85.69 $121,302
*--*
*1995 data current through May.
Source: TRW Redi Property Data, Riverside
