By David Reyes
Los Angeles Times
February 27, 2006
Rolly Pulaski plans to take in one long, last view of the
Pacific on Tuesday as he and his neighbors prepare to leave
El Morro Village beachfront mobile home park.
"Come by on the 28th; we'll be saying goodbye to the
last sunset," said Pulaski, who fondly recalled many a
late afternoon sitting on his hilltop terrace with his wife,
Madine, who died last year. "From our favorite alcove
we saw whales, hawks flying by, even a bobcat once."
By midnight Tuesday, the remaining residents of this
community north of Laguna Beach say, they plan to be gone,
sticking to an agreement that ends one of the state's
longest-running battles over public beaches.
For 26 years after the state acquired the land for the
public, residents hung on with hopes for one more summer,
one more sunset. There were lawsuits, legislative hearings,
hot tempers and pleas for more time. Now the last days are
at hand for 200-plus tenants.
By fall, state officials say, work should be underway on
developing a campground, RV park and beach accessible to
all. The area is part of Crystal Cove State Park, which
stretches 3.5 miles from Laguna to Corona del Mar.
"We understand the tenants, and they're in a grieving
process," said park Supt. Ken Kramer. "But there
are no more outstanding issues at the village. So come March
1, the state takes responsibility for the park."
For residents, their departure marks the end of an era. For
decades, this enclave in Crystal Cove State Park has served
as a vacation refuge for some and a full-time home for
others.
Some families, such as the Stevens-Heflin clan, go back four
generations. They and others helped create the park's sense
of community, where campfires, volleyball matches and
laid-back weekend potlucks reflected a beach way of life.
Before he leaves the park, Gabe Heflin, 28, who grew up
there, plans to shake hands with as many residents as he can
before midnight Tuesday. "I'm planning on spending as
much of my time as I can with all my old friends," he
said.
"It's a piece of history that's being lost here,"
said filmmaker Michael Spencer Taylor, a permanent resident
working on a documentary about life at El Morro in its final
year as a mobile home park.
"I would call it the death of a community," said
attorney Gerald Klein, who represented the residents in
their Superior Court battles. "It's one of the oldest
communities in Orange County where people really treated
each other as neighbors."
The land was owned by the Irvine Co., which in 1927 leased a
portion of the area where the mobile home park now lies to a
businessman who sold propane to coastal farmers. That's
according to an excerpt from the coming book "A
California Woman's Story," by heiress Joan Irvine
Smith.
It was then called Tyrone's Camp, and the proprietor put in
a restroom and a market that sold abalone from nearby
Abalone Point.
Trailers replaced tent camping in the 1940s. In 1954, it was
renamed El Morro Trailer park.
Tenants rented their sites month to month from what is now
the Irvine Co. until the state bought the land for $32.5
million in 1979 and turned it into a park. The state offered
residents 20-year leases that were extended for five years
in 1999.
Even by that deadline, residents didn't move out. They hired
attorneys, offered to pay higher rents and backed a local
assemblyman's bills to prevent their eviction — all to no
avail.
On Wednesday, the state plans to close the mobile home park,
shutting off utilities to ensure that no electric or gas
lines cause a problem, Kramer said.
A contractor will be hired to salvage items of value from
the remaining 250 mobile homes, such as old brick and
furnishings.
"Any value left in the mobile homes will be sold to
offset the state's cost to remove the mobile homes," he
said.
Parts or all of the trailer park will then be demolished,
including foundations, restrooms and pavement and debris
removed, he said. Construction of the public campground is
not planned to begin until next year.
"Unfortunately, the delay dealing with litigation has
forced us to delay our construction by 24 months,"
Kramer said. "We hope to launch the bidding for the
construction at the end of summer."
Many residents, such as Judy Wallace, 66, have had a family
trailer at El Morro for more than six decades. Recently, she
stood outside her trailer reminiscing about spending summers
with her two boys and looking at a collection of sunbaked
seashells and driftwood — souvenirs of summers past.
Since the 1930s, Wallace's family has had a stake here. Her
father, Bert Francis of Upland, liked to fish, and camped
out on the sandy beach, then bought an old travel trailer
and parked it there.
After she married John Wallace, also from Upland, where they
have a home, they bought a share in the family mobile home
in the early 1960s.
Rent, which has climbed to $300 to $700 a month, was $25
then. They moved from a beachfront trailer to a trailer
inland of Pacific Coast Highway.
Their trailer is simply outfitted. No high-end refrigerator
or marble countertops here, like one beachfront trailer that
sold for $225,000 four years ago.
For John Wallace, 69, a retired football coach at Montclair
High School, the trailer park is where he taught his sons
how to bodyboard, fry fish and catch grunion.
"Our kids learned you don't get grunion by sitting at a
warm campfire and pointing a flashlight at the surf,"
he said. " This has been a great place. All our kids
bodysurfed; we even had our granddaughter bodysurfing
here."
But not all are saddened by the residents' departure.
When the Irvine Co. sold Crystal Cove to the state, the
intent was to make the property a public park, said
environmental groups and Smith, a former company board
member. Smith said it was her family's wish to ensure that a
piece of the county's coastline remain forever open to the
public.
When told El Morro residents were leaving, she said,
"This is wonderful news. The entire park was to be a
benefit of the people … to be preserved, protected and
made accessible to all."
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Moving deadline
Chronology
1979: The Irvine Co. sells the state a swath of land,
including the trailer park site, for a future state park.
Many mobile home residents sign 20-year leases.
1982: The state approves a General Plan to convert the
trailer park to public recreational use.
1999: Residents are given five-year lease extensions.
Nov. 2004: Residents file two lawsuits to bar the state from
evicting them. Both are denied.
Dec. 31, 2004: The lease extensions expire.
Jan. 20, 2005: The eviction process begins.
March 1, 2006: Deadline for residents to have left the
grounds.
*
Source: California Department of Parks and Recreation
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