The Lake That Films Helped Build--and ‘Robin Hood’ Helped Name

They were promised a private clubhouse, tennis courts, golf course and polo fields on the shore; swimming, boating, fishing and sailing on the lake.

But residents who bought lots at the Las Turas Lake Club in the 1920s would have to wait about 60 years to see the kind of amenities the developers promised. And by then, the man-made lake had been renamed Lake Sherwood and had spent years serving Hollywood as a backdrop for medieval England and Tarzan’s Africa. Not to mention being the inspiration for the world’s most famous woodpecker.

Norm Suffern bought his lot next to the lake on Thanksgiving Day, 1934. Eleven years had passed since developers started marketing Villa Sites and a clubhouse at the Conejo Valley lake.

Suffern was just looking for a hobby and vacation spot away from the bustle of movie land, where he worked as an independent film technician and later as a film editor at a number of studios.

“It was the closest lake to Hollywood where you could have a speedboat. We had about six or seven speedboats here and a ski jump.”

The site of those weekend ski parties had only recently become a lake. At the turn of the century, it had been a grassy meadow occupied by herds of deer. Completed in 1905 at a cost of $60,000, the lake was initially called Lake Matthiessen, after W.H. Matthiessen, who built a dam to provide water to his cattle and crops.

The 64-foot-high dam blocked Malibu Creek and its tributaries Las Virgenes and Triunfo creeks from flowing to the Pacific Ocean. The picturesque and prehistoric valley containing Rocky Pass gorge and Mountain Meadow was soon filled.

It became Lake Canterbury for a short while, and its name changed once again to Las Turas, when Elsie Canterbury, who owned the 8,400 acres, decided to devote the entire area to recreation.

But the Great Depression halted the schemes and plans of many would-be developers. The timing was wrong for Las Turas and other planned resort towns such as Cambria, Hollywood by the Sea, San Clemente and Santa Catalina Island.

The economy was slowly creeping out of the dark pit dug by the stock market crash years earlier when Suffern bought his lot. Attracted by the peaceful surroundings, deer and coyote, as well as fast boats, Suffern designed a charming split-level house.

“I had the kids in the neighborhood help me, and my friends. I paid for all the material as I went, [within] 30 days, and got the discount. When I got through, I had no loan on the house.”

It took him four years to build it, thanks in part to the steep hillside location and a layer of bedrock.

“I dug the garage, took about a year. Green granite, it was so hard. I think it destroyed [the developers’] budget. Geez, it’s tough. It laughs at dynamite.”

Hollywood helped build the neighborhood.

“Years ago, when the studios were here, they would do what is called ‘strike the set.’ They still do it. If you wanted to take the set down, they would give you the lumber. They used a lot of 2-by-3s, and there were a lot of houses built with those here. And there are several with no foundations, just built on big rocks.”

Hollywood also helped name the lake.

In the mid-1920s, when Douglas Fairbanks made the movie “Robin Hood” there, it was renamed Lake Sherwood by popular demand. Other “Robin Hood” filming resulted in Sherwood Forest, now known as Foxfield Riding Academy.

A large part of the Tarzan pictures, with Johnny Weismuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, were made around the banks of the lake. Suffern remembers one particular story.

“On a Friday night, I wasn’t here, darn it, but they tell me Maureen O’Sullivan went swimming in the nude! That was a big thing. They talked about that forever.”

A hippopotamus was placed in the lake for the Tarzan movies, and it took them weeks to get it out. In “Lost Horizon,” the trees around the lake were filled with colorful birds.

Movies gave the lake a name, but the people who lived there gave it personality. Walter Lantz bought a home on the lake, and Suffern recalls what happened next.

“Walter was complaining to his wife one morning about the woodpeckers. On their side of the lake over there, they just peck, peck, peck. She said, ‘Why don’t you do a cartoon about them?’ Well, he did. It made him a multimillionaire. This is the home of Woody Woodpecker.”

The characters who contributed to the lakeside community included Will Hayes, named to head the infamous motion picture censorship board. He lived nearby in Hidden Valley but would careen around the lake in his limousine, escorted by two motorcycles. Gary Cooper and Joan Fontaine would visit just to contemplate in the beauty of the surroundings.

After the Depression, the lake was made available to the public to help pay for its upkeep. Fishing for bluegill, crappie, catfish and bass was popular, and nonfishers could row around Bunny Rock Island. The popular picnic grounds and boat ramp remained opened until the 1980s, when the lake was drained.

In 1985, developer David Murdock bought the lake and refilled it, but he never again opened it to the public. The lake has come full circle and is a resort offering private membership and exclusive amenities. The large iron gates and guardhouse are on the other side of the lake from Suffern, who started living in his house full time in 1983.

“Now I’m here all the time. I have the fresh air, I have two boats and I enjoy it. I prefer that to nightclubs or Vegas or gambling or a lot of people around. It is quite a different life than the studios because you can do what you want and when you want it, and there is no pressure. That means a lot.”

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Conejo Valley Remembers

Four years ago, a group of Thousand Oaks residents launched an oral history project to preserve the memories of the Conejo Valley’s earliest settlers. With support from the Thousand Oaks Library Foundation, dozens of residents were interviewed and their remembrances transcribed and filed at the library. Tina Carlson, who heads the project, has pared some of the interviews and provided them to The Times to publish during Conejo Valley Days. Today, through the voice of Norm Suffern, 82, she tells how Lake Sherwood was transformed from private watering hole to luxury resort.