In the Canyon, Change Is Met With Resistance

No two houses are the same--decades-old cabins perch next-door to modern three-bedroom homes. No two yards are alike--some fenced, manicured and green, others pockmarked with rocks, littered with fallen leaves and overgrown with dense foliage.

This is Sierra Madre Canyon, a place so well known in San Gabriel Valley lore that it’s commonly referred to simply as “the canyon.”

It’s a community known for its laid-back and close-knit residents, its ‘60s hippie roots. Homeowners welcome the deer that venture down from the mountains. They leave doors unlocked at night.

Despite the seeming calm, there are rumblings of discord. These days, canyon property values are soaring and tiny shacks are being replaced with larger, modern homes. In recent months, speed bumps were installed on curvy Woodland Drive--the canyon’s one-lane artery--after parents complained about cars roaring down the steep hill.

John Herrmann, who has been a canyon dweller since 1963 but abruptly rejects the “hippie” label--”I was a bohemian”--expresses frustration about what he sees as irrevocable, harmful changes. “When people with lots of income move into a neighborhood, they fail to see the things that are important to the community,” he said. “When one of the old houses dies, something new and awful takes its place.”

In the last three years, only a handful of new homes have gone up where shacks and cabins used to dot the oak-studded landscape. But some residents complain that the new homes--along with the modernization of existing homes--are stripping the canyon of its charm. And they fear more new construction is on the way.

Local real estate agent Greg Prout has his own love affair with the canyon. He lived as a “flatlander”--a term for residents who don’t live in the canyon--during high school in the ‘60s. For the last decade, he has made it his goal to live in the canyon. That’s why he paid $200,000 in August for a dilapidated cottage on Woodland Drive. He wants to demolish it to build a 2,300-square-foot Spanish-style home.

Though Prout has yet to commission plans for his house, his demolition permit is being appealed by former canyon resident Richard Trader, who insists that the proposed home will be too big. Trader, who believes the canyon should be deemed a historic district, is known as the canyon’s most strident preservationist.

Trader’s appeal went before the City Council on Nov. 9 and was rejected 5-0. But Prout expects another appeal to the city’s Planning Commission. “I didn’t really see this opposition coming,” Prout said. “I was a little surprised, but I had heard that people didn’t want any changes, were suspicious of anyone who wanted to build, were super-hypersensitive to trees.

“It’s not pleasant when people . . . accuse you of raping the land,” he said.

The distance between Trader and Prout is canyon-wide. Trader, Herrmann and others want the canyon to stay simple and quaint. They want to retain the intimacy of a place where everybody knows everyone’s business; where a homeowner is still considered a newcomer after a decade.

Prout said he has the same values and that there are houses in the canyon that are larger than the one he hopes to build.

He’s frustrated with those who share Trader’s point of view.

But Trader won’t back down.

There are locals who welcome the new crowd, saying they are an improvement over the hippies who left the canyon a shambles.

Rene Krause, 63, was a “borderline” hippie in the 1960s and watched kids “from San Marino slum it up here.”

“I think it was a fun time, but as a homeowner I prefer what’s happening now,” she said. Krause doesn’t think the canyon will be harmed by the building of homes similar to Prout’s and calls the opposition to Prout insanity.

“People are too vigilant up here,” she said.

Her neighbor, Patricia Heredia-Hammond, agreed. “If you want to change something around here, you’ll have to fight tooth and nail.”

Still, the canyon’s louder voices belong to those who see its future as grim. “The term mansionization comes to mind,” said Iain Colquhoun, a 66-year-old retired aerospace engineer. Colquhoun and his wife, Karen, and their two greyhounds live in a two-bedroom home built in 1915, with the original outside stone stairway intact.

The Colquhouns moved to the canyon 13 years ago to get away from the stress of Culver City, and yet see those who are moving in now as a sign that the canyon is becoming too mainstream.

“The word for the canyon was funky. Now it’s getting un-funky,” he said. Colquhoun is bothered by the expensive cars, gleaming houses and rushed professionals around him. Every day, his disapproval grows as he watches concrete trucks make their way up Woodland and listens to carpenters’ saws and hammers.

But with a deep sigh, he acknowledged that to tell people what to do with their property is draconian. “Yet, why do you come to a place if you intend to change it?”