Crystal Cove Tenants Face Another Day of Reckoning : Housing: Residents are supposed to vacate shoreline state park by midnight. But they want their third deadline extension since 1992.

CRYSTAL COVE —  Sitting around the Christmas tree in a living room that offers a stunning view of the blue Pacific lapping at the rugged coastline, Peggy and Brent Ogden hardly look like a couple facing a New Year’s Eve eviction notice.

“We don’t have a moving box out, nothing’s been packed,” Peggy Ogden said with a shrug. “We don’t even know where we would go if we had to.”

As the New Year rings in at midnight, when many people are clinking champagne glasses, about 75 Crystal Cove residents will be practicing a rite of their own: Not heeding the state’s order to move from their cottages, located on some of the most expensive real estate in Orange County--and leased to them for a fraction of market value.

State officials say the cottages must be vacated by the end of today so they can begin plans to refurbish the 45 bungalows in Crystal Cove State Park and turn the area into a beachfront resort, where it could cost up to $400 to spend a night. They point out that residents have known for a long time that this day was coming, and agreed more than a decade ago to give up their claim to the cottages.

But cove residents, some of whom pay well below $500 a month to live on the stunning coastline, are reluctant to leave the 70-year-old beach community listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Since the 1920s, people have been drawn to the 12.3-acre cove between Laguna Beach and Corona del Mar that on clear days offers a view of Catalina and even San Clemente Island. The sentimental value is immense in this tiny community, where homes were built with hand tools and kept in the family for as many as five generations. Neighbors are really an extended family.

“It’s such a very special place,” said artist Vivian Falzetti, who has lived at the cove for 18 years and has sand for a front yard. “It wouldn’t be logical for us to be picking up and heading out now. It’s our home.”

Until 1979, the cove was part of the vast Irvine Ranch. Then California paid $32.6 million, at that time the most expensive park purchase in state history, to buy 1,896 acres that make up the state park. Some cottage residents leased their homes and others owned the dwellings outright, but nobody ever owned the land under the units.

The state’s purchase threatened cove residents with eviction, but in 1982 a deal was negotiated allowing residents to continue living at the cove for 10 more years--if residents gave up any claim to the cottages in exchange.

In 1992, residents were granted a six-month reprieve. When that deadline passed, they sought the help of the county’s powerful lobbyist and managed to get the state to agree to a 2 1/2-year extension.

That extension runs out tonight, and state officials say they are prepared to begin legal proceedings if residents do not go willingly.

But residents of this enclave tied together by narrow, twisting roads remain remarkably unruffled.

“Can you imagine 45 moving trucks trying to get down here?” said Peggy Ogden, who has lived at the cove for 12 years. “I don’t know anyone who’s actually packing up.”

“I don’t choose to see this eviction as inevitable,” added county librarian Cinda Combs, who first came to the cove to visit her grandmother’s cottage in the 1940s.

Used as a backdrop for the movie “Beaches,” every corner of the cove is marked by quaint and charming touches. There are the topiary dolphins wearing Santa hats. Holiday lights decorate a foot bridge and stairs in the center of the cove.

Residents are framing their latest effort to stay put in economic terms: Why not let them remain for a few more months until the planning process is completed and work actually begins on the cottages, perhaps in mid-1996?

The state would continue to collect about $40,000 a month in rents, and residents would prevent vandalism and perform upkeep on the cottages, their argument goes.

But Bob Cates, chief of the state Department of Parks and Recreation’s Environmental Design Division, said many potential contractors have expressed reluctance to bid on the renovation job with residents still entrenched and possible legal wrangling ahead.

Residents have also launched a letter-writing campaign to plead their case and enlisted the help of Assemblywoman Marilyn Brewer (R-Irvine), who requested another extension.

State Resources Secretary Douglas P. Wheeler said the eviction date would remain, adding that cove residents have had “an extraordinarily long period” to prepare for this moment.

As the year draws to a close, residents say they are taking more time to appreciate the unique qualities of the cove.

“I’m trying hard not to think about it too much, but I am wondering, how much time do we have left?” Peggy Ogden said. “Is this really it?”