Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
re: I've been snooping around the property.
______________________________________
Hoss, I believe there might have been an additional building(s) up this small road. (shown below, red arrow at right)
It's about the width of a single lane road and the edges are smooth so it isn't a run-off channel or anything natural like that.
I've circled where the small path/road ends.
google_aerial
Here's a close-up. You can see at least one good sized foundation and another one that's half-hidden beneath a tree.
detail / google_aerial. NORTH is at left.
The other two prominent shapes look like solar panels to me............................. .
Then I thought, maybe this isn't on the same property as the Medical Planning Assoc; so I checked.
Yep, it's all one BIG property (outlined in blue below)
Malibu property boundaries here:
http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale...44_rect/17_zm/
I realize it's no big deal, but it was fun exploring.
I don't think we'll ever know what used to be at the end of that lane.
__
|
Yes, you will know.
At the end of that lane, on that foundation, was a four-ish-car garage. There was a sign over the doors which read "Franc and Dan's Sometimes Autoworks". And sometimes they did.
"Dan", was Dan Logan, who had come up to 1601 Rambla Pacifico. the property's formal address, in the 1960s to work for Jim Moore's company, Medical Planning Associates. He started by making lunch and feeding the dogs. Over time Dan became an architect, like Jim, and was his protege.
By the time Jim retired, 15 or so years later; Daniel A. Logan had worked his way up to becoming the President of Medical Planning Associates; the company that occupied those buildings so beautifully photographed by Julius Schulman.
And he also became the sole owner of "Rockledge", the 15-acre property under those buildings. He also shared "Windcliff", the house you mentioned with the 13-car garage, (BTW - one space had a hydraulic lift and other tools and machines so a mechanic could come there to work on the cars rather than the other way around.)
And I'm surprised you didn't mention Windcliff having; from the upper bedroom windows; a view of the Pacific, including Catalina Island, on the West wall, a view of the SF Valley on the North wall AND a view of downtown Los Angeles and environs to the South and East. Unique.
It sat on ten acres contiguous with the huge property that was the top of that hill at an elevation of 2750 feet, making it, I believe, the highest point in all of Los Angeles. It was the Nike Missle Tracking site when the US Government leased the acreage from the owner, Jim's friend, John Hall.
As a favor to Jim, Windcliff was carved out of Hall's property as well ... There was a small seasonal lake on it, filled with catfish! These fish would bury themselves in the mud during the dry months and wait for rain when they miraculously came back to life! Windcliff was a unique property. Both Rockledge and Windcliff burned in the Malibu Fire of 1993.
In that garage at the end of the lane was a 1935 Bentley with its original UK license plates. It was a future restoration project. A 1953 Bentley had shared space until its completed restoration some years earlier. It was then given its own space in one of six cargo containers that had been placed around the property. Three were used as garages (the '53 Bentley, my 1964 MBZ 230SL and a restored 1971 Maserati Ghibli) The other three were used as storage and archives for MPA paperwork. Those are the other "pads" you see on the property; the one near the garage, under the tree. a couple where those solar panels are now.
On November 2, 1993, after 2-3 exhausting days of continually soaking the buildings with hoses, we felt like we were safe. It was calm. The fire was way across Carbon Canyon and seemed contained. I turned on my video camera to record it.
All of a sudden, the wind abruptly changed and came, incredibly strong, directly toward us. We tried to resist and continue wetting things down but suddenly the fire was behind us Dozens of embers caused the many pine and spruce trees surrounding the buildings to kind of explode and then briskly burst into flame. The heat felt like a huge oven door to hell had just opened. The police came running down the driveway screaming, "EVACUATE! NOW NOW! We figured we had to go.
Having safely survived a few earlier fires before, we were overconfident and hadn't packed anything to save ... that morning, almost as a goof, I grabbed two pieces of art off the wall, saying, "well, if everything goes, we'll have these.", and threw them into the back seat of the Bentley. And that's exactly what we had. Everything burned in that very hot, (the Wolf stove melted!) horrible inferno.
We drove out of Rockledge in our 1980 Bentley, the '64 MBZ 230SL and the '53 Bentley. The newly restored Maserati, in its metal storage container, baked away leaving only a blackened frame. The '35 Bentley had to be left outside in the parking area ... near the propane tank ... it escaped totally unscathed!! It is still somewhere awaiting restoration.
We stopped about a quarter mile away and looked back. Rockledge was totally engulfed in flames at least a hundred feet high. I picked up my video camera which had been on since I was calmly going to shoot the fire across the canyon. Only fifteen minutes had elapsed. But life for me, for Dan, for Rockledge and for Medical Planning Associates ... had changed forever.
I hope that didn't get too boring; when I start writing I can't easily find an endpoint so I go on ... and on ... I'm Franc, the other name on the Sometimes Autoworks sign ... I'm also somewhere awaiting restoration