The Enclave : Residents of Affluent, Secluded Sand Canyon Band Together to Battle Developments That Threaten Area’s Rustic Ambiance

As a brush fire seared a black path through Angeles National Forest toward Sand Canyon, livestock owners rushed to the Sable Ranch, loaded up the horses, goats and llamas and drove the animals to safety.

No one told Jack Olling, the ranch manager, that they were taking the animals during last week’s fire. They just did. That’s the way things are done in Sand Canyon, Olling said.

When danger threatens--be it from a fire, a flood or a developer--residents traditionally band together to protect what is often considered Santa Clarita’s most unusual and affluent community, a secluded canyon dotted with large Tudor and ranch-style estates.

The biggest battle in Sand Canyon these days is over a plan to put an open-pit mine in the area. Last month, residents raised $9,500 through a garage sale and barbecue to support the cause.

“We seem to pull together in a crisis,” said Loren Janes, who is a Hollywood stunt man, the late Steve McQueen’s double and a 21-year canyon resident.

William Cloyd, an architect and builder of Sand Canyon homes for 20 years, said canyon residents tend to be individualists--Janes called them loners--but they unite with scrappy determination in troubled times.

“When it comes to fighting something, they all get together,” Cloyd said. “They have one common goal--it’s to protect this canyon.”

It’s easy to see why. Sand Canyon, a community of about 600 homes, is only about 35 minutes from downtown Los Angeles, but is cradled by mountains that block out light and noise from the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys. Stars are plentiful, smog is rare.

Residents say people outside Sand Canyon, even many in Santa Clarita, don’t know it exists. Two main roads lead into the area, Sand Canyon Road and Placerita Canyon Road, and Angeles National Forest forms the community’s eastern border.

Cloyd said the average Sand Canyon home costs $600,000, not including the land. The average Santa Clarita home sells for $183,000, according to the Santa Clarita Valley Board of Realtors.

Sand Canyon is home to business owners, actors, “Dallas” star Linda Gray, breeders of Arabian horses, Santa Clarita Mayor Howard P. (Buck) McKeon and Councilwoman Jan Heidt. Not all houses are lavish, of course, but large dwellings perched on scenic bluffs have earned Sand Canyon a ritzy reputation.

“Sand Canyon is kind of known as the Bel-Air of the Santa Clarita Valley,” Janes said.

Some find the Bel-Air comparison a bit farfetched. “We’re a long way from that,” said Rita Garasi, a Santa Clarita planning commissioner and 13-year canyon resident. “I don’t think we’re anything special.” Instead, she sees Sand Canyon as a “back-to-basics, barn-raising community.”

But deserved or not, the upscale reputation sticks. Pat Sauer, who helped organize last month’s fund-raising garage sale, said the canyon’s reputation helped draw people from all over Santa Clarita.

The garage sale raised $6,000 to help pay legal fees in the battle, already 2 years old, to stop the Black Diamond mine, which would produce iron silicate ore at a site in Angeles National Forest across from the Live Oak Campground.

Mike Levison, head of a group called Minebusters, said a giant rock crusher proposed for the mine would destroy the quiet of the canyon. Huge trucks carrying the ore would thunder down already dangerous, and narrow, Sand Canyon and Placerita Canyon roads, he said. The Eureka Consolidated Development Co., which has proposed the mine, says the roads are adequate for the traffic.

Levison said Minebusters is expecting a long fight. An environmental impact report on the project might be completed early next year and Minebusters is prepared to file a lawsuit if the U.S. Forest Service gives the project a green light.

Levison would not reveal how much Minebusters has spent to block the mine but said the $9,500 raised last month--including $3,500 raised at the barbecue--will pay only a portion of the group’s legal fees.

Previous Fights

Such fights are not new to Sand Canyon residents. Garasi recalls how the Sand Canyon Homeowners Assn., working with state health officials three years ago, helped devise a cleanup plan to remove tainted water and soil at Space Ordnance Systems, or SOS, an explosives manufacturer off Placerita Canyon Road.

The company already has removed old storage tanks and soil, and is filtering water to remove what state health authorities said were unacceptable levels of solvents and other chemicals. Alan Opel, vice president of the company’s parent firm, TransTechnology of Sherman Oaks, said the filtering should be finished in two to five years.

“We believe the problem is being remedied,” Garasi said, adding that a residents’ advisory committee still checks the progress of the cleanup operation begun last year.

Mormon Church

In another dispute, the homeowners persuaded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last year to scale back plans to build a church in the canyon. The church also agreed to adopt a country-style architecture for the project and to install bridle paths on the property.

It was only a partial victory for the homeowners. The canyon residents, saying the church would generate excessive traffic, tried to scuttle the project, which is now under construction.

Cloyd experienced the resolve of Sand Canyon residents 20 years ago when he proposed building six houses on 8 acres instead of the standard four houses.

The residents, he recalled, acted as if he were proposing a giant subdivision. They circulated petitions and protested to the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission. The residents won, and--upon looking back--Cloyd said he realizes they were right.

Residents tell many stories of canyon unity in the face of adversity. Telephones start ringing anytime there’s a fire, Garasi said. And neighbors fill and hoist sandbags during the canyon’s chronic floods, she said.

Helping Out

Olling, manager of the Sable Ranch, says the residents’ simple, help-your-neighbor attitude has helped keep him in the canyon since 1956. Million-dollar homes have replaced the ranches that once filled the canyon, but the area still pleases the man who says he’s “a country boy at heart.”

The Sable Ranch, Olling said proudly, is the last working ranch in Sand Canyon. “We have developers coming in once a week wanting to buy the place,” he said. “We tell them it’s not for sale.”

The ranch is used mainly as a shooting site for movies and television, and its livestock includes a friendly donkey named Marco that has spent 35 of his 40 years in show business. “He’s everybody’s best buddy,” Olling said, stroking the donkey’s ears.

Marco has appeared in so many films, Olling said, that he instinctively runs in front of camera crews. “I have to lock him up when people are shooting,” he said.

Olling said he wasn’t surprised when friends carted away Marco and other animals during last week’s fire. The impromptu rescue effort was pure Sand Canyon.

But even in Sand Canyon, unity has its limits. While friends evacuated the horses, goats and llamas, they left the cattle behind. The cattle, he said, “were more than they wanted to handle.”