23-Acre Agoura Party Retreat Site Sold

Fantasy Island, the glitzy party retreat whose amplified music and honking horns prompted hundreds of complaints from its Triunfo Canyon neighbors, has been sold to a businessman who plans to live on the property with his family.

Hormoz Ramy, owner of Reseda Dodge and another car dealership in Simi Valley, bought the 23-acre site for $1.85 million, said Tim Pluma, a listing agent at Capital Commercial Real Estate in Brentwood.

The sale culminates a five-year battle between Avi Datner, an Israeli immigrant whose family owned the property, and neighbors so fed up with the park’s traffic and noise that one frustrated neighbor began jackhammering rocks in retaliation during one Fantasy Island event.

Last year the complaints began to catch up with Datner, who in March pleaded no contest to several misdemeanor counts of violating county permit and licensing laws. Facing additional counts of polluting Triunfo Creek, Datner pleaded no contest in September to two other misdemeanor counts. He was fined $15,000 plus $17,000 in court costs and sentenced to three years’ probation, Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward Nison said.

“Mr. Datner simply wanted to get out of the property,” Pluma said. “He just threw up his hands and said, ‘I’m done, it’s over.’ ”

Datner did not return a call for comment Tuesday.

Ramy said he intends to finish building a luxury home started by the Datners to use as his residence. Ramy, who is allowed to build up to four houses on the land, said Tuesday he plans to build at least two other houses for family members.

“It’s going to be very quiet,” Ramy said. “It’s going to be a family piece of property.”

Neighbors of the resort, once a popular venue for weddings and bar mitzvahs, expressed relief that sleepless nights spent listening to the macarena reverberating across the canyon had finally come to an end. Since the Datners pulled the plug on parties about a year ago, the mountain sounds of crickets and rustling oak leaves has returned.

“We’re relieved that the whole thing is over with,” said Leah Culberg, president of the Triunfo-Lobo Community Assn. She recalled that during the height of Fantasy Island’s rollicking, one hard-of-hearing resident mistook the vibrations of thumping party music for an earthquake.

Others welcomed a residential use for the property, which was zoned decades ago for resort and recreational pursuits.