‘He Really Lived His Dream ...’

As the death toll in the La Conchita landslide continued to rise Tuesday, the Ventura County coroner released the names of some of the victims. Below are profiles of three of them.

Tony Alvis

“It’s like a gamble, but I didn’t have to go to Las Vegas,” Tony Alvis joked after he had purchased his La Conchita home.

“Even if a slide wipes us out in 10 years, I’ll have enjoyed it.”

He didn’t quite get his 10 years.

The body of Michael Anthony Alvis, 53, the first to be pulled from the landslide in La Conchita, was identified Tuesday by Ventura County authorities. He died of blunt-force head and chest injuries, the county coroner’s office said.

By nightfall Tuesday, six bodies had been recovered and officials warned that at least 12 other people were missing.

Alvis had known what he was getting into when he plunked down $50,000 and bought the empty La Conchita house on a February 1997 day on which torrential rain was causing mud to pour off the mountain above the tiny hamlet.

The 2,500-square-foot house stood across from the remains of a house owned by his brother, Dan, that had been destroyed by a landslide in 1995.

But the beachfront community was perfect for the adventure-loving Alvis, an avid surfer who had lived for three decades in La Conchita.

Known for his thick, gray beard and ever-present cowboy hat, Alvis was a colorful character who was considered a jack-of-all-trades by those who knew him well. A skilled ironwork artist and former oil-rig worker, he was best known as a Los Padres mountains wilderness guide who led horseback camping expeditions into Ventura County’s backcountry.

His friends had hoped that Alvis’ survival skills would have saved him from Monday’s avalanche.

Girlfriend Joann Webb of Ojai was confident that he had ridden out another one when she first heard of the mudslide.

“He’s a survivor. He knows how to handle emergencies,” she said. “He was always the guy called for horse emergencies or people lost in the wilderness.”

Webb had known Alvis for 20 years, since the day he popped into the Ventura shop where she sold hammocks and blurted, “I love hammocks!”

“He drove old, funky trucks. He was a surfer, but he was also a mountain man and I wondered, ‘Who is this guy?’ ” she said Tuesday.

“He really lived his dream. He was happiest out there in the backcountry. When he’d come back, he’d be so at peace and so calm that nothing could ruffle his feathers. He knew how to make and keep friends. Every day he would call at least a handful of people, just to see how they were doing.”

Many of those friends gathered Monday night at Tipp’s Thai restaurant in Ventura to swap stories about the cowboy and western artist. Eatery owner Chang Liampetchakul, who sometimes worked as a cook on Alvis’ mountain expeditions, described Alvis as his best friend.

Many were startled by the beauty of the chandeliers and fireplace screens that Alvis created from scrap iron, said Ventura resident Ron Van Rossum.

“That was kind of the surprising side of Tony,” Van Rossum said. “He was a significant individual in a lot of ways.”

Former Ojai rancher and outfitter Alvah Hicks met Alvis on the trail. Now an Atascadero real estate agent, he and Alvis led federal researchers into the backcountry in 1986 when officials were establishing a condor sanctuary.

“Tony was a spokesman, a guide, a voice for the forest itself. He loved his animals. He loved the forest,” Hicks said.

Alvis grew up in Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco area. He is survived by his brother, who lived downstairs in the La Conchita house, and parents Dane and Millie Alvis, who also live in the town.

John Morgan

John Morgan loved surfboards. He loved skateboards. That made La Conchita the perfect place to grow up.

As a kid, he would zip up and down its sleepy residential streets on the first skateboard that others in the coastal hamlet between Santa Barbara and Ventura had ever seen.

As an adult, Morgan decided to stay in La Conchita even after he became a groundskeeper for the Navy base at Port Hueneme in Ventura County.

The tiny community was a place where he could play his 1960s rock music “really loud,” as one friend put it. The ocean was a few steps across U.S. 101 when he wanted to grab his board and surf. He was at home Monday when the landslide crashed into his house.

John Murray Morgan, 56, was identified Tuesday by the county coroner’s office. The cause of death was blunt-force head and chest injuries.

“He was a wonderful person, very quiet,” said Margo McCrary, 51. The former La Conchita resident was a friend of Morgan’s for 44 years.

McCrary recalled Tuesday how Morgan became a skateboarder before it was in fashion.

“Kids would make fun of him because they didn’t know what skateboarding was yet,” she said.

As children, Morgan and McCrary played hide-and-seek in the neighborhood and in ravines in the cliff that towers above La Conchita. They would run under the tunnel beneath U.S. 101 linking the beach and the town.

Morgan moved from La Conchita for a while. But he missed the place and moved back into a house where he lived -- and died -- alone.

Charlie Womack

Living in Charlie Womack’s house on the back side of La Conchita was like living in the ‘60s.

“It was a modern commune. It was the closest thing I’d ever seen to the ideal in movies like ‘Easy Rider.’ But it was real, it worked, it was natural,” longtime friend Steve Samojeden said.

Womack’s home was always open to his extended network of friends, who dubbed themselves “The La Conchita Llamas.” He welcomed those in need, even turning over the house’s master bedroom to friend Jimmie Wallet and his wife and three young children when they were in financial difficulty and needed a place to stay.

Wallet survived the mudslide, but his wife, Michelle, 36, and daughters Hanna, 10, Raven, 6, and Paloma, 2, were among the missing.

Womack was staying in a 40-foot tepee that he had erected in front of his Santa Barbara Street home when the cliff above the street gave way. Friends said he had been hiking earlier in the day and was probably sleeping when debris engulfed him.

Charles Womack, 51, was identified by the Ventura County coroner’s office Tuesday. Authorities said he died of blunt-force chest and neck injuries.

A construction worker, Womack was well aware of La Conchita’s landslide danger, friends said.

One set of houseguests were two women who had been displaced by the neighborhood’s 1995 landslide. They repaid his kindness by making large, family-style meals for those staying at Womack’s house.

Others there were members of Womack’s contracting crew and those playing in his band, “7th Day.”

He enjoyed setting up large Gidget-style beach parties that featured a stage, deejays and bonfires, friends said.

Womack grew up surfing in Oxnard and was determined to raise his four children near the beach. The three youngest, 15-year-old Tessa and sons Isiah and Orion, both in their 20s, lived with him. They were unharmed. An adult daughter, Cory, lives in Ventura.

“Within his lifestyle and means, La Conchita was what he could do,” Samojeden said. “He definitely was someone who lived every day like he could die tomorrow.”

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Fred Alvarez, Erika Hayasaki, Bob Pool and Christopher Reynolds and special correspondent Molly Freedenberg.