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Life & Times Transcript

07/03/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

It's a dream ranch, perfect to the last detail, so why did the owner walk away?

Idoya Bonilla>> There's like so much more he wants to do with it, but time and money and permits, everything is so hard.

Val Zavala>> And then, step back in time without leaving town. We'll show you a street of painted ladies just a stone's throw away from the freeway.

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> Welcome to this special edition of Life and Times where we explore some of our rich, local history beginning with a trip to one of southern California's first ranchos.

It's a part of our Spanish past, but it's nearly hidden, surrounded by industry and factories. It's a one hundred eighty year old adobe and you'll see in a moment why volunteers have spent years restoring it. Vicki Curry takes us inside the Dominguez Rancho Adobe in Carson.

Tom Huston>> This is the birthplace of the South Bay.

Vicki Curry>> And the former home of one of Southern California's oldest families. Tom Huston is a descendant of Juan Jose Dominguez, the original owner of this land, now known as the Dominguez Rancho Adobe Museum. The family recently restored the adobe and the surrounding grounds.

Tom Huston>> Two of the families still have land. There's probably around twenty-three to twenty-four hundred acres still remaining of the original land grant. That's remarkable that they still believe in their forefathers' thought and that is to keep the land.

Vicki Curry>> It all began when Juan Jose Dominguez came to California in 1769. He escorted Father Juniperro Serra on the Portola Expedition to set up Spanish missions throughout the state.

Tom Huston>> Juan Jose Dominguez was a soldier in a king's army and his job was to protect the exploration. Upon his retirement, the King of Spain granted him the first Spanish land grant in California which was called Rancho San Pedro. That incorporated seventy-five or seventy-six thousand acres.

Vicki Curry>> The 1784 land grant encompassed most of the South Bay including parts of eleven present-day cities, but Juan Jose never spent much time at the isolated rancho and built only a small adobe there. When he died, the land passed to his nephew, Cristobal, and then to Cristobal's son, Manuel Dominguez.

Tom Huston>> And Manuel came up here and took a look at the land and said this is fantastic, I love it, and that was the beginning of really the Dominguez influence in the area. That's when Manuel and his brothers and his sisters and mother all moved up this way and they started the building of the adobe.

Vicki Curry>> The family finished this adobe in 1826 and, one hundred eighty years later, it's still standing. Donna Harris is the museum manager.

Donna Harris>> This site and this family have been instrumental in every era of development of southern California in rancho life, in agriculture, in the oil era, real estate and transportation. Here in the map room, we have many of the artifacts from Manuel's political and business career. Unlike many of the other rancheros, he was bilingual, he was well educated, and this resulted in him serving in political office under both the Mexican and the American governments.

He was the Mayor of Los Angeles, elected three times over. He was on the County Board of Supervisors. He was a judge. He was one of only seven delegates from southern California to serve on the initial California Constitutional Convention where they wrote the first Constitution for the state.

Vicki Curry>> Despite his prominence, Manuel Dominguez had to withstand regular challenges to his ownership of the rancho.

Tom Huston>> Because Juan Jose had not taken too heavy of a vested interest in the property, over the years there were people that came in and laid claim to it. So Manuel was busy through most of his life defending the land.

There was a case where the Sepulvedas were head-ranching for the Dominguez family. They raised some cattle and some crops up on what is now Palos Verdes and they had laid claim for it and Manuel would go up and defend his rights in court.

Vicki Curry>> Manuel successfully defended his rights on seven occasions. However, during the eighth challenge, Jose Delores Sepulveda was killed in an Indian uprising leaving his wife and children alone in Palos Verdes.

Tom Huston>> At that time, Manuel had said forget it. Give them the property. Their home had been established up there and he felt sad. That chunk, which was about thirty thousand acres, went to the Sepulvedas.

Vicki Curry>> When California became a state, Manuel had to prove his ownership again. Then finally in 1858, President James Buchanan officially recognized the Dominguez land grant.

Donna Harris>> You notice that he is holding a document there which is the notification from the United States government that the rancho is the first to receive a clear patent of ownership in recognition under the United States government.

Vicki Curry>> When Manuel Dominguez died in 1882, he was survived by six daughters. Three of them married men who would play important roles in the South Bay.

Donna Harris>> And Susana married Dr. Gregorio Del Amo, as in the Del Amo Mall, Del Amo Boulevard. Victoria married Carson, as in the city of Carson. Delores Dominguez married a man named James Alexander Watson.

Tom Huston>> And Jack Watson is my side of the family. Manuel devised a plan to get one of his six daughters married to a lawyer who could defend their land grant and the lawyer was Jack Watson.

Vicki Curry>> The six Dominguez daughters and their husbands split the property between them and maintained the rancho and adobe.

Tom Huston>> With the eve of the 1900's came the dirty words, property taxes, and with the droughts and the floods, it wasn't a consistent income coming in, so the family was forced to sell some of their land.

Vicki Curry>> Two of the sales resulted in the cities of Redondo Beach and Torrance.

Tom Huston>> Manuel had also given the right-of-way to the railroads to service the land south of here. Without the granting of that easement, I don't know if we'd had those ports today.

Vicki Curry>> The families formed corporations for the land they continued to own, two of which still exist today. The Carson Companies and the Watson Land Company operate several industrial parks throughout the area. But because there were no male heirs to carry on the Dominguez name, the daughters decided to give their home and the surrounding seventeen acres to an order of Catholic priests.

Tom Huston>> The Claretian Fathers then were going to set up a seminary and they were going to call it the Dominguez Seminary.

Vicki Curry>> Dwindling enrollment caused the seminary to close in 1974. That's when Father Pat McPolin decided to turn the adobe into a museum to preserve the history of the Dominguez family.

Tom Huston>> Manuel understood what he had and wanted to make sure that he protected it and passed it on to generations and generations.

Vicki Curry>> And the museum staff is making sure the legacy of the Dominguez family lives on. I'm Vicki Curry for Life and Times.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> You wouldn't believe what lies in the middle of nowhere north of Santa Barbara. It's a hidden gem, an entire Mexican village including a bull-fighting arena. This creation was the dream of a wealthy Mexican who wanted to create an authentic Mexican village to raise his children. So why is this stunning place now vacant and virtually abandoned? Stephanie O'Neill Noe heads north to find out.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Between the bustling central coast city of Santa Maria and Bakersfield in the central valley lies a one hundred twenty mile stretch of California Highway 166. It's a lightly traveled, picturesque two-lane road in east Santa Barbara County.

It takes you first through the rolling hills of the Sierra Madre Mountains, then into the expansive farmlands of the Cuyama River Valley and it's here on off-the-beaten-track farmland behind rows of seemingly misplaced Italian poplar trees that one man's dream lies abandoned, at least for now. Jose Luis Bonilla is a Mexican entrepreneur who came to this little-known valley in 1979. With profits from several Mexican markets, he began work not on a dream home, but a dream village.

That's right. An actual Mexican village complete with this full-size Mexican rodeo arena and seating for three thousand spectators, horse stables large enough for seventy Andalusia horses, many of which he would fly in from Spain, a reservoir with a giant fountain, a bandstand topped with ornate handcrafted metal work, street lights also made on-site, park benches and exotic landscaping, all of it in what many would call the middle of nowhere. Idoya Bonilla is Jose Luis's youngest child who helps oversee the Rancho.

Idoya Bonilla>> Little by little, he started investing here in this ranch that they told him about. He liked it because it was far away from the city. He didn't want us to grow up in -- he lived in Riverside and he really didn't like it for us because it was growing and the schools were too big. He said, oh, I want my kids to live like I lived in Mexico where you have to go work and take care of the horses and stuff.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Your whole life essentially you've spent living here and watching your dad build this place.

Idoya Bonilla>> Yeah. Ever since we got here and I was like nine months. Little by little, he started building things and he started out with the arena for my older brother. He likes the Mexican rodeo. With that is where he started and said I want to make something really nice.

Since we lived here in the middle of nowhere, he started collecting rocks. He'd buy big old dump trucks and start filling them up with rocks and sending them out there all day, just collect rocks and collect rocks until he had enough and he started building and go collect more.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Only one problem. In twenty years of building, Bonilla never bothered with getting permits for all the construction and, without knowledge of county officials, Bonilla had dozens of men working morning to night fulfilling his dream. The permit problem didn't surface until the year 2000. That's when Bonilla began filling these stadium seats with several thousand rodeo and concert spectators.

Harrell Fletcher>> His vision was that this would be a Mexican Solvang, that he would have restaurants and shops, a church, and just make this a piece of Mexico that people could come and visit.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Harrell Fletcher is a land agent who is helping Luis Bonilla get permits for the village. No small task, but Fletcher says the extensive photo-documentation of the building process coupled with the quality engineering and construction has so far impressed inspectors.

John Karamitsos is a supervisor with the Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Department. He says, while it is alarming to him that his office was unaware of the two-decade long project, he nevertheless believes that Rancho Bonilla will qualify for the necessary permits.

John Karamitsos>> What we have here is out in probably the most rural part of Santa Barbara County, something that really is spectacular and rivals some of the most impressive structural development within the county.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> For years, Bonilla directed workers to collect building materials from his five hundred acres of ranchland surrounding the village. Abandoned oil pipe was transformed into fencing and corrals and he used river rock to create an authentic Mexican feel.

Harrell Fletcher>> All the rock is from the area. This area used to be a river bed, so all these were round tumbled rocks, and he has taken and matched all these rocks and chipped them so that they would be smooth-faced for the front.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> River rock entirely blankets Bonilla's rodeo arena which is considered one of the world's best such examples.

Harrell Fletcher>> This is the entrance to the arena. They have the pits where the animals could come out from there on the left side and then bulls could come and they would have bloodless bullfights here also. It's an exact replica of a bull arena.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> A Mexican bull arena?

Harrell Fletcher>> Right. They come out of those pens and down and open that door right there and let them in.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Sam Quinones is an author and Los Angeles Times reporter who lived in and wrote about Mexico for ten years.

Sam Quinones>> It's this beautiful monument to kind of a fevered mind. You know, the guy let nothing stand in his way. He just went out there and built and built more and, as he built more, that allowed him to think of even grander designs and grander schemes and that allowed him to even build more and on it went for twenty or twenty-five years or so.

To me, it's a reminder of why people came to California in part. It's the ability to -- the state was kind of once this blank slate in which kind of anybody's imagination could take flight.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> But frustration about permits and regulations of today's California prompted Bonilla three years ago to return to his home in Zacatecas, Mexico.

Idoya Bonilla>> There was like so much more he wants to do with it, but just time and money and permits, sometimes he gets really frustrated. He's like I'm building all this and it's not giving me anything. It's like a big white elephant (laughter).

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> Bonilla has even gone so far as to put the ranch up for sale, but only to the right buyer.

Idoya Bonilla>> Not really about money, but about appreciation, about the horses, about the taking care of it, keeping the trees, keeping everything the way it is or better, someone who loves it as much as he does.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> How would you feel if he sold it?

Idoya Bonilla>> Oh, no, no. I don't want him to.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> This is your home.

Idoya Bonilla>> Yeah.

Stephanie O'Neill Noe>> As Idoya Bonilla and her family await final word from county building inspectors, they continue to invest their time schooling local youngsters in the art of Mexican rodeo, their hope being that Rancho Bonilla will again become a showcase of authentic Mexican culture. For Life and Times, I'm Stephanie O'Neill Noe in the Cuyama River Valley.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Hena Cuevas>> Just off the 101 less than a mile from downtown lies a neighborhood that boasts the title of Los Angeles's first suburb and also one of the first neighborhoods to fight for the preservation of their buildings. Taking a walk through Angelino Heights is like taking a walk back in time. It's just a short drive off the 101 Freeway. Turn a corner and suddenly it's like a movie set come to life.

Planaria Price>> A lot of people drive by here and they think it's a museum. They think that we're caretakers of it.

Hena Cuevas>> Planaria Price and her husband, Murray Burns, have lived in Angelino Heights for more than thirty years. Together they have restored almost thirty homes.

Planaria Price>> I love being right near downtown Los Angeles. I love the diversity of it. I love it.

Hena Cuevas>> Back in 1886, Angelino Heights was just another plot of land until it was turned into Los Angeles's first suburb. Its big appeal? It provided easy access to downtown. The Hill, as it became known, quickly became an affluent neighborhood attracting bankers, merchants and real estate developers. But in a city like Los Angeles, not known for preserving its architecture, --

Murray Burns>> The Victorians that were built in the flatlands got demolished. These weren't demolished because they were up on this hill and it was much harder to reconstruct on a hill, so the developers just went to the valley.

Hena Cuevas>> The area slowly fell into disrepair as construction moved westward into the San Fernando Valley. But in the 1970's with the arrival of people like Price and Burns, the neighborhood got a new lease on life.

Murray Burns>> I think the first step was lobbying the city government around 1980 to create historic preservation of Los Angeles zones.

Hena Cuevas>> In 1983, the residents were able to get the area designated as an historic preservation zone. Today there are signs indicating "Here is Los Angeles's highest concentration of Victorian era residences." That historic designation means there are restrictions on what can be done to any of the eight hundred structures in the neighborhood.

Murray Burns>> This preserves the exterior of the buildings only, not the interior.

Hena Cuevas>> What are the rules for the inside?

Murray Burns>> There aren't any.

Hena Cuevas>> How does that make you feel?

Murray Burns>> Well, personally, it disturbs me. I think it interrupts the harmony, the beauty, of the buildings. But the way many people want to live right now is to have a huge kitchen, a spa in the bathroom, and it's not possible the way these houses were built.

Hena Cuevas>> But not all the homes are original to the area. This one, built in 1872, is the oldest and belonged to Los Angeles's first chief librarian. In 1992, it was moved from downtown into Angelino Heights. This other one was moved in the mid-1970's and is still being restored, a sign of just how long it takes to bring these houses back.

Murray Burns>> The move-ons are welcomed because we're trying to reconstruct for future generations what the street would have looked like in the 1880's.

Hena Cuevas>> Restoring one of these homes back to its original glory isn't easy. Not only does it require the time and the patience to get the permits from the city, it can also be quite expensive. A lot of these homes require a new roof, a new foundation, new electrical, new plumbing, and these can run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But tackling makeovers of this magnitude is not for everyone.

Planaria Price>> You should find a good psychiatrist and a lot of wine. Seriously, it is a passion. It is a commitment. I don't think it's a great money-maker, but it's something that you produce art and you produce a beautiful life.

Hena Cuevas>> Price got into the area by chance. Thirty years ago, she had just come back from Europe and was looking for a place to live when she stumbled upon Carroll Avenue.

Planaria Price>> And it was so much like Europe. I didn't know that Los Angeles could have these magnificent houses. It was not magnificent. Everything was very, very rundown.

Hena Cuevas>> Even though the area and the buildings were rundown, she saw a lot of potential, so she decided to buy this house.

Planaria Price>> This house had a little "For Sale" sign on it and I was able to buy it for nothing and it started. The rest is history.

Hena Cuevas>> And so began the long and painstaking process of restoration. The house, like many others in the area, had been subdivided into apartments. No detail was spared.

Planaria Price>> We wanted to be really perfect, so rather than going to Home Depot and buying some little hinge or some kind of light fixture that kind of looks Victorian, we'll go and get the real thing.

Hena Cuevas>> And all that hard work paid off. The house turned out so beautifully that it is now featured on the WB television show, "Charmed", which takes place in San Francisco.

[Film Clip]

Hena Cuevas>> For Price, it's a source of pride to see what her neighborhood has become.

Planaria Price>> I'm really happy and really lucky that it actually came true. It really came true.

Hena Cuevas>> And even though the neighborhood is so close to downtown and surrounded by low-income housing, Burns says crime is no worse than in other areas.

Murray Burns>> There is some of the kind of normal crime that you would find. Occasionally a burglary, occasionally a stereo taken from a car, but it's the safest neighborhood that I know of in the city.

Hena Cuevas>> Once a month, the Los Angeles Conservancy offers tours of the area, but Burns and Price are always happy to share their love for old homes.

Planaria Price>> We feel that we're so lucky that we happen to be here, the right place at the right time, and we want to kind of share our good luck with people in Los Angeles and all over.

Murray Burns>> We feel like the houses really belong to the city of Los Angeles and, whenever anywhere possible, if we see that we can show somebody or somebody's grandchildren the house, we'll invite them in.

Hena Cuevas>> It's a way for them to show them by keeping the neighborhood true to its past that's been made new once again. I'm Hena Cuevas for Life and Times.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> It is called the "mother road" and for good reason. It delivered millions of future Californians to the Golden State. I'm talking about Route 66 and, for the past fifteen years, San Bernardino has brought Route 66ers together for an event that attracts nearly half a million people. We thought we'd go along for the ride.

[Film Clip]

John Coute>> Well, in the beginning, Route 66 was developed to develop the United States on the west coast and east coast. It was the main thoroughfare from Chicago to Southern California. Well, we've tried to relive as much of that as we can. We still take many trips across country in our hotrods. We go to Louisville. Many times, we've been back into Oklahoma City.

[Film Clip]

John Coute>> The Route 66 Rendezvous has a lot of history in California right now. We were voted the number one feature attraction two years ago in the state of California. The cars that are qualified to be in the Route 66 Rendezvous are generally 1973 and older vehicles and we encourage all makes and models. We have no preferences. We have everything from customs to hotrods to low-riders to race cars. They're all welcome. We're just car nuts and we want them all here.

[Film Clip]

John Coute>> It's unlike anything else on the west coast. You now have over five and a half miles to cruise your hotrod and you've got tons of people to see because there's over half a million spectators here and I can guarantee you that you will have a good time.

This is what this was all about back in the 1950's when people got in their cars with their families and their friends and went cruising up and down E Street in San Bernardino. You'll see more grins in the next mile than you could ever see anywhere else in the country. "I got my kicks on Route 66."

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> The Route 66 Rendezvous happens every September in San Bernardino. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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