Sweat Equity

Knees wobbling, fingers clawing the uneven climbing wall like a scared cat clinging to a tree, Gemma Groocock tried not to look down. Her left foot pawed the air wildly, searching for a toehold as she grappled against gravity.

“I’m losing my grip,” the lanky 13-year-old cried, her voice booming off the synthetic rock. Twenty-five feet below, Natalie Good, 12, tightened her hold on Gemma’s climbing rope and belted out some hearty advice.

“You can do it, Gemma!” she shouted. “You’ve got it . . . Keep your left foot there and then there’s a spot by your right knee. No, other side, Gemma . . . Yes!”

No more lazing around after school in front of the television for these girls. Since the Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center opened its shiny doors last month, they’ve taken up rock climbing on a 35-foot indoor wall.

“It’s just really fun,” Natalie said during a calmer moment. “It gives us a lot of exercise, and our parents like it because it gives them time to do things on their own.”

Plenty of parents are also hanging out at the $5-million recreation center, the newest attraction on Malibu Hills Road. There’s a cavernous gym for basketball and volleyball games, a fitness center stocked with new treadmills and exercise bikes, and a mirrored dance studio.

For those interested in more sedentary pursuits, the center features three large meeting rooms and an outdoor patio with wooden tables. The facility also offers baby-sitting.

A joint project of Agoura Hills and Calabasas, the 30,000-square-foot center was more than 20 years in the making. Long before the two affluent suburbs became independent cities, a handful of residents were throwing dances and casino nights to raise money for a recreation center.

About $15,000 later, “everybody realized there’s no way that we can have bake sales and raise the millions we need to build what we want,” recalled Ed Corridori, mayor pro tem of Agoura Hills and chair of the center’s board.

So the group lobbied hard for public funds over the past decade, piecing together money from two county park bonds, state funding and private donations to build the facility.

The center is open to everyone, though it draws most of its members from Calabasas and Agoura Hills. Family memberships cost $55 per month, while individuals can join for $33 per month. Nonmembers can also use the gym and fitness center for fees ranging from $1 to $5.

*

Some fitness instructors, wise to the ways of health clubs, note that the center is more family-oriented than most. A date can still be snagged in aerobics class, but with groups of 10-year-olds scampering around the halls, the place just doesn’t have that swinging-singles feel.

“It’s not a meat market,” said Ken Niemann, a fitness trainer at the center. “It’s just friendly.”

And since the club’s membership roster is only about half-full, there is hardly ever a wait for the exercise machines.

During peak hours on a recent evening, the child-care staffer was looking after just one little boy, playing a quiet game of tick-tack-toe in a large room filled with spotless toys and unbroken crayons. A sign by the door said the room’s capacity was 76, but so far a busy day has yielded only about eight kids.

But business is steadily picking up, said Dan Huncke, the center’s manager. The nearby Calabasas Tennis & Swim Center has a health club waiting list 350 names long, and some people have already signed up at the new center instead.

“It’s just so convenient,” said Julie Gutierrez, a Calabasas woman who said she works out at the center almost every day. “You don’t have an excuse not to exercise anymore.”