Preschool Puzzle : Owner, 72, Is Determined to Reopen Despite 3 Mysterious Arson Attacks

It has the ring of a familiar prime-time mystery:

An arsonist tries to burn down a tiny preschool in an thriving area of town three times, but fails each attempt. The owner, an indomitable 72-year-old woman known to her students as “Grandma,” sets out to prove that someone is trying to scare her off the valuable property to make way for commercial development.

The story is a real-life drama for Louise Villeneuve, owner of the Village Preschool in Yorba Linda. The fires, which occurred during a two-week period in March, have baffled investigators and shocked and angered staff members.

The fires have thrown the lives of children and parents into disarray, and families have had to scramble to find alternative day care. The preschool has an enrollment of 140, with up to 89 children attending on any one day.

“The investigators keep asking me if anybody hates me and who’s mad at me and whether I owe anybody money,” Villeneuve said.

“But I can’t think of anyone who would feel that way about me. I come to school, go home in the evenings and mind my own business.”

Police said they have few leads. But the string of fires have convinced Villeneuve that someone is out to get her land.

She has owned the property at 18052 Imperial Highway for 17 years, and she thinks that someone may want to force her to sell the valuable land.

Her fears stem from suggestions that the land may become even more valuable as commercial activity in the area increases--facilitated, many believe, by the construction of the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library about half a mile south of the preschool, near the former president’s birthplace.

Villeneuve said she has received offers of $1 million for the land. And Beverly Ross, the Yorba Linda real estate agent who arranged the sale of the property to Villeneuve, said the site is probably the prime parcel in the city for commercial development.

“In my heart and mind, I think that if somebody wanted to build a motel or something there--and there is enough land to do it--if somebody wanted it badly enough, they would do it,” Villeneuve said, speaking of the fires.

Neither of the fires destroyed the buildings, but they forced her to shut down the preschool temporarily.

The first fire occurred in the wee hours of the morning of March 11. , when someone walked up to the school, threw a match into an open breezeway cluttered with toys and ran, investigators said.

Firefighters described the blaze as intense. The toys were consumed, the porcelain in a nearby bathroom was melted and a portion of the heating duct immediately above the flames was destroyed, but the building’s sturdy concrete walls nevertheless contained the fire in a relatively small area.

Damage was estimated at $20,000, and investigators weren’t even sure whether

arson was involved.

But at 10:30 a.m. on March 20, the Sunday two days before the school was scheduled to reopen, fire swept through two classrooms. This time investigators found evidence of multiple starts with a flammable liquid.

Still, most of the 1950s adobe-style building withstood the flames. Damage was limited to the two classrooms, and there was no danger of the building collapsing. Most of the other classrooms were still usable.

Another Opening Planned

Villeneuve and her staff immediately began planning another opening.

But the Tuesday after the second fire, March 22, Villeneuve received at her Yorba Linda home a mid-morning call from an acquaintance, telling her that the school had been set afire yet again. Villeneuve thought the caller was confused and was referring to the fire two days earlier.

But the caller insisted, and Villeneuve wearily got into her car and headed for the school, to find it again engulfed in flames. This time nearly half the building was damaged (fire investigators estimated damage at $100,000), and there was no chance of a speedy reopening.

Most parents said they are determined to do all they can to help the school open again.

“When it reopens, we’ll absolutely go back, if only because pulling out means whoever did this has won,” said Deby Goodman, whose 5-year-old daughter has attended the school for three years.

“After the first fire, we were all very sad, and the second fire made us angry, but this third means war, by God.”

At an impromptu meeting organized by parents after the third fire, virtually all of the 20 to 30 families attending said they are willing to send their children back to the Village Preschool. Some parents have even spoken of setting up a reward fund for information leading to the capture of the arsonist.

Karen Eichberger, who had worked at the preschool since November, is watching several children at her home because some working parents have nowhere else to put them.

Connie Morgan said she has had trouble keeping her son, Shawn, 4, occupied since the fires because he is used to a structured full day at school.

“I have called a couple of other schools, but there are usually long waiting lists, and there are only a couple of months before schools close for summer vacation,” Morgan said. “We’re hoping the preschool will be ready to reopen by the end of the summer.”

Morgan said her initial concern was whether Shawn would be afraid to go back. He loved the school and looked forward to being there with his friends, but after the fires, during a talk about the danger of playing with matches, he asked whether the arsonist would come back and start another while he was playing with friends.

And he worried about his toys and whether his painted pictures had been burned, Morgan said.

“We sat down and talked to him and said, no, we didn’t think it would happen again,” she said.

Children Not at Risk

Indeed, while investigators have established no suspect or motive, they do not believe the children were ever at risk.

“When you look at the timing of the fires, it’s reasonable to assume the person was aware that no one was at the school at the time,” said a county fire investigator who wished to remain anonymous.

Fahi Vazirian--who, as director at the preschool for the past six years, is in charge of day-to-day operations--said none of the seven teachers and two aides employed at the school has been threatened.

And no one would want to hurt Villeneuve, she said. “She is a great lady. Her mind is active and as young as a 20-year-old’s. All of the children love her--they call her Grandma. The teachers admire her and have learned so much from her. None of the parents are mad at us. I can’t put my finger on anyone who would want to do this.”

While Villeneuve can think of no one who would want to harm her personally, she believes that they want her land for commercial development.

However, building a motel would involve changing the site’s current commercial and office zoning, Yorba Linda planning director Phillip Paxton said.

City officials do not anticipate increased commercial development associated with the Nixon library, with just two developments--both retail shopping centers about half a mile from the preschool--scheduled to be built in the area before the library became a factor, Paxton said.

“We expect to get children coming for educational programs, and maybe some people from Disneyland, but not droves of tourists. I even doubt there will be demand for an extra motel. I can’t believe anyone who would have enough money to buy the land as a commercial property would risk going to jail for burning the building down.”

Based on his experience with day-care centers, Paxton suggested that the culprit is more likely an irate--and unbalanced--parent: “Even at the best (schools), there are always parents who are mad at something.”

But no one associated with the school wants to believe that. Teachers at the school said Villeneuve--affectionately called “Mrs. V” by her staff--and the children are like second families.

“It’s a great, fun place to work, and it really does have a family atmosphere,” said Karen Hirsh, who recently rejoined the staff after a three-year absence.

Parents also said the school is like a home away from home, a place where they can feel comfortable leaving their children.

“I really would hate to put my son anywhere else,” said Lynda Haut, whose 3-year-old son has attended the school for a year. “What happened with the fires and not having the school open is really like a death in the family.”

For Villeneuve, the school is the culmination of a lifetime’s work in preschool education. Her career began in 1934 in Iowa, where she was an elementary school teacher. She came to California in the 1940s, intending to join the Navy after the United States entered World War II.

Few Care Options in WWII

Instead she began working at a Southern California aircraft company. Her interest in child care was piqued by the experiences of women who joined the labor force during the war but had few options for care of their children.

She received one of the first certificates in early childhood education conferred by Orange Coast College and also researched childhood education at UC Irvine.

Villeneuve said that as long as she has the support of parents and teachers, she is not ready to give up her school and would like it to remain in the family.

Villeneuve’s daughter Carol, 31, an instructor in childhood development at Kings River Community College in Selma, Calif., said her worst nightmare is that “everything will be put back together, cleaned up and rebuilt and whoever’s doing this will come again.

“I’m following after my mom’s footsteps because I’m so proud of her,” she said. “I would eventually open a day-care center of my own, but I’d love to take over the Village Preschool. The school is like security to me.”