As the Knotts Defined O.C., ‘The Farm’ Has Defined Them

In some ways, the Knott family has served as a sort of First Family for Orange County, weaving themselves into the very fabric of the landscape with their involvement in politics, community affairs and charity events.

While family members will point to more “prominent” clans, the Knott brood was one of a kind. Beginning with Walter and Cordelia Knott, the family and its world-famous amusement park helped place Orange County solidly on the map.

And if the Knotts helped define the county, it was “the farm” that defined the family. Like other clans held tightly together by a common purpose, the Knotts were fused by the family business.

“I think the farm was the adhesive that kept the family together,” said Paul Bender, whose wife, Virginia, is part of the second generation of Knotts, one of Walter and Cordelia’s four children. “They all had a common interest.”

Over the years, the family has pulled together to help run the park, with the children and some of the 22 grandchildren all taking active roles. Even now, all voting members on the board of directors are blood descendants of the couple.

On Tuesday, Marion Knott Montapert, 75, said the move to sell the park felt like “a jolt.”

“It has been one of the most rewarding experiences in the world to be able to work at something you really enjoy with your parents, and then to be able to work with your kids,” she said. “We all learned at a very early age that we were going to do much better if we worked together than if we all went off separately. And my dad was a great facilitator at keeping the family together.”

No one knows what the sale of the park will ultimately mean to the family. But Paul Bender said the change is bound to have some impact on the siblings and their offspring, now that they will no longer be attending monthly board meetings together.

How does he feel about the change? “Sad,” he said.

However the family makes peace with the change, friends and acquaintances say the Knotts have already left a powerful legacy.

“The Knott family is synonymous with Orange County,” said Supervisor William G. Steiner, whose district includes Buena Park, where Knott’s Berry Farm is located. “I think they have left a significant mark on the Orange County landscape.

Locals speak of the family with fondness and respect. Their memories are varied and often tinged with politics.

Tom Fuentes was just a teenager when he met Walter Knott at the farm in the early 1960s and the larger-than-life patriarch encouraged him to get more involved in politics. Today, Fuentes is the Orange County Republican Party’s chairman.

“He was a giant in the Orange County community,” Fuentes said of his mentor. “All of the persona of Orange County . . . in terms of family values, religious values, conservative politics, were exemplified by Walter Knott.”

Cordelia Knott was also warm and impressive, he said, an able businesswoman known far and wide for her chicken dinners. Both were “approachable,” he said.

“You have to remember in those days, when Orange County was growing in the 1960s, Knott’s Berry Farm as an institution was of the magnitude of a Disneyland or Irvine Co. in terms of a dominant statement of business accomplishment in Orange County. These were entrepreneurs of enormous success, participating day by day with their community.”

For decades, Newport Beach resident Peggy Cotton has been friends with “the girls,” as Walter and Cordelia’s three daughters are still called. The three sisters live within walking distance of one another in the exclusive Big Canyon community of Newport Beach.

Cotton remembers how the family struggled to make Knott’s Berry Farm a place where they would want to take their own children.

“They wanted it to be a place that they felt good about and everybody else would too,” she said. “It was really a hands-on operation and it was a safe place to go.”

Whatever happens to the park in the future, the family members’ roots are deeply planted. Virginia Knott Bender started and still runs Virginia’s Gift Shop; Marion planned the various theme areas of the park, including designing the Roaring ‘20s section; Toni Oliphant, the third sister, helped with retail sales, particularly in Marion and Toni’s Sport Shop; brother Russell Knott worked for years as the park’s administrator.

But their reach--and the reach of their children--extended well beyond the park. The second generation focused their charitable energies heavily on organizations that help children or fight disease, while their children have become increasingly involved in the local arts.

Since the three sisters are all breast cancer survivors, that has become another cause that has drawn them together.

With the closeness they have known, family members now wonder what the sale of their beloved park will mean to them personally.

“We’ve already started talking about how we’re going to get together regularly, even though we don’t have a board meeting,” Montapert said. “We certainly are not going to lose touch with each other. That’s been ingrained too many years.”