SWIMMING TO LOS ANGELES--Recollections of the Barn--SANTA CRUZ, 1980

 

The barn was located about two miles up Old San Jose Road at 1641. James Kouretas, one of the original members of the "White Lightning" party, Laguna Beach, rented it from an old half-cripple named "Charlie," who spent most of his time at a local golf course drinking highball.

Tucked away across a small creek with a wooden bridge, the structure was made from wood, had two decks and two wings which served as horse corrals, on each side of the main room, accessed by massive doors that rolled open. Surrounded by trees, the barn wasn't visible from the road; additionally, a great deal of lower vegetation was in the immediate vicinity, mostly weeds and grass that needed to be chopped back to make the place habitable. It had water, there was a small bathroom in one of the outlying houses just up the small dirt road from the main house where Charlie lived alone, along with his black Labrador dog, Midnight.

The main lower deck of the structure was cluttered with junk; old barrels, half torn apart engine blocks, probably from some farm tractors, and a variety of rusted-out and partially useless tools for cultivating the property. The ranch, or farm, itself, extended halfway up a distant hill where a spectacular panoramic of the farm, with all the apricot and peach trees in an orchard along the highway, could be seen. In addition, the neighbors on the west side grew a variety of fruits and vegetables in the many different rows on the other side of a small fence. In addition to the weeds, gras, trees and overgrown shrubbery, there were the token critters that lived there. They included yellow jackets, centipedes and a variety of some very dangerous looking spiders, crawling and creeping from under every piece of rotten wood and rusted out tool. Ants were everywhere, birds swooped down and paid brief visits to the new occupants, that in particular being me, since James would commute from his other run-down studio at the edge of deactivated McLellan Air Base in North Highlands, on the outskirts of Sacramento.

The barn was about 50 feet in length with the main deck at 25 feet and each corral wing extending out another 10-20 feet. The height at the crest was about 25-30 feet

The barn needed a Hollywood makeover to make it livable. Most of the junk on the main lower deck was gradually moved into the horse stalls on the wings

Kouretas rented it in the early 80s for $50/month, I lived there and we set up a kiln to fire ceramics. I spent the days working on Gomez cars, the nights in the beer bars in Capitola, had no money at all.

Now long forgotten are those days in the past, it's now a wedding venue for the rich.

Rancho Soquel | Wedding Venues | Soquel, California (caratsandcake.com)

Charlie and his highballs at the golf course.

The Barn in Google Earth 3D--

Google Earth