Stevenson Ranch Suburban Dream Is Transformed Into a Nightmare

When Stevenson Ranch grabs headlines, it’s for the subdivision’s award-winning but crowded schools, the quick turnover of its comfortable homes and the safety of its curving streets, where so many big-city cops have chosen to live.

On Friday, Stevenson Ranch’s Blue Ribbon school was evacuated, a $340,000 house was in ashes and a sheriff’s deputy was dead.

Stevenson Ranch homeowner Cindy Knutson summed up the incongruity of it all, repeating a line often heard after tragedies shake up a nice neighborhood: “These kinds of things--they can happen anywhere.”

Shown from above, as it was for hours Friday by swarming news helicopters, Stevenson Ranch is a classic Southern California bedroom community--a swirl of red-tiled roofs plopped into the hills seemingly overnight. Most of the wide, immaculate streets are named for famous writers.

James Allen Beck, the alleged gunman who kept authorities at bay, lived a street over from Shakespeare Lane, within sight of Melville Court.

“Just being outside of L.A., you don’t feel like you’re part of the city,” said Knutson, who lives with her husband and three children three streets from Beck’s house.

Authorities say Beck killed Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Hagop “Jake” Kuredjian, who lived on the other side of the Golden State Freeway in Santa Clarita, which the FBI ranks as America’s fifth-safest city.

Stevenson Ranch is a signature development in one of Los Angeles County’s fastest-growing communities. Developers carved it out of the picturesque foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains in the 1990s, on an unincorporated 4,000-acre spread once used for grazing and sheep shearing. As part of the Santa Clarita Valley, the 5,000-home subdivision is included in a book called “Fifty Fabulous Places to Raise Your Family.”

If Beck pretended to be in law enforcement--as authorities allege--he picked the right neighborhood. Fully 10% of Los Angeles police officers live in Santa Clarita, more than the percentage that live in the city they patrol.

When Ron Hofmann, a Beverly Hills publicist, moved his young family to Stevenson Ranch two years ago, the real estate agent assured them “You couldn’t go more than three houses without running into a police officer.” Sure enough, his neighbors include a sheriff’s deputy and an LAPD officer.

“I used to live in Silver Lake, near Echo Park,” Hofmann said. “Every other night we would hear gunshots. When we had our little daughter, we thought, ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’ ”

Schools are part of the Santa Clarita Valley’s attraction. The campus evacuated Friday, Stevenson Ranch Elementary, near Beck’s house, was named a Blue Ribbon School in May by the U.S. Department of Education. Such citations have sent enrollment soaring. At nearby Valencia High School, portable classrooms cover two sports fields and a parking lot.

And the area continues to grow, perhaps because of the sort of promise made by the developers of Stevenson Ranch on the community’s Web site:

“The lifestyle here will exceed both your dreams and your expectations.”