Verdugo Views: Community effort helped save Whiting Woods

Back in 1979, a Whiting Woods homeowner went to a Glendale City Council meeting and handed over a check for $27,000.

“It’s yours,” said John Coleman, who was representing Whiting Woods residents who had raised money to help purchase Henderson Canyon and preserve it for the future.

The story behind the check was featured in the March 2013 Ledger, published by the Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley, with reprints of two 1979 Los Angeles Times articles.

It all began when Jamco Corp. announced plans for a 345-home subdivision above Whiting Woods.

The Whiting Woods Property Owners Assn. teamed up with Small Wilderness Area Preservation to combat the proposal and raise money to help the city purchase the nearly 500 acres.

Their year-and-a-half effort bore fruit when, in July 1979, the city agreed to purchase the northern slope of the mountain for $915,000.

Coleman told the Times — after the August 1979 City Council meeting — that the check wasn’t large, but it was an effort to help preserve the higher slopes of the Verdugos in a natural state.

The mountain is one of the last great vistas left in metropolitan Los Angeles, he said.

Then Mayor Carroll Parcher, whose father was an early settler in Glendale, called the donation a “rare happening.”

“I’ve been around here a long while,” Parcher said. “I can’t recall citizens scraping up this much money and giving it to city government.”

Henry Agonia, the city’s parks and recreation director at the time, was praised for negotiating the purchase and finding additional federal grants.

It was the city’s largest land acquisition since L.C. Brand donated 600 of his acres on the other side of the Verdugos to the city.

The canyon purchase met with approval from the Glendale League of Women Voters, which had campaigned for public acquisition of the higher Verdugos for two decades.

Georganne Thomsen, league president in 1979, urged the council to “finance the purchase of all undeveloped Verdugo Mountain property before further increases in land values escalate the cost to the public.”

Nowadays, Whiting Woods residents enjoy the wilderness preserve right above them.

“We are very grateful to our local neighbors who worked hard and pitched in their own funds and also to the city so that this land was purchased for public use,’’ said Claudia Culling, a board member of the Whiting Woods Homeowners Assn.

“Many of my neighbors and many people from outside the neighborhood use the trails,” Culling said. “Some run, some walk, some bike, some take their children, some take their pets.”

Plus, she said, the mountain is a never-ending source of wildlife.

“We have seen a bear, mountain lions, bobcats, deer, hawks, owls and all sorts of other animals that roam up there,” Culling said, adding that sometimes the animals come down and pay a visit.

“It is a wonderful resource for everyone,” she said.

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Readers Write:

Carol Brusha recently wrote seeking the story behind the luminarias on Columbus Avenue, north of Kenneth Road over the holidays.

Shortly after, on a Glendale Historical Society walking tour, I met a young couple, Jenn and Blake Levin, and, in a wonderful coincidence, discovered that they not only live on Columbus, but have taken over organizing the display.

They put me in touch with the previous owner of their home, Karin Barnes, who had coordinated the event for many years.

In a later email, Barnes said the tradition extended back about 25 years. She didn’t know which family had started it, but said she organized it for about 10 years. Some 25 homeowners participate, each filling about 15 paper bags with sand and a candle and placing them in front of their house.

By tradition, she wrote, no one parks on the street that night. Lighting begins at sunset.

“It has become a very social thing to mix with all the neighbors on Christmas Eve,” she said. “Those out of town arrange with another neighbor to light their candles.”

The candles are lit again on Christmas night. If it rains on Christmas Eve, the event is postponed until New Year’s Eve.

“It is such a beautiful tradition, and people have made it part of their Christmas Eve ritual to drive by and see the candles lining the street,” Barnes said.

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KATHERINE YAMADA can be reached at KatherineYamada@gmail.com or by mail at Verdugo Views, c/o News-Press, 202 W. First St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Please include your name, address and phone number.