Rolling through history -- From bears to celebrities, Valley Center's lure revealed in planned bus tour

By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer | Saturday, March 31, 2007 7:30 PM PDT ∞

John Wayne stopped by looking for Randolph Scott, a nobleman played host to the Prince of Wales, Gary Cooper threw legendary parties, and Fred Astaire raised his family.

No, not Hollywood, Beverly Hills or Palm Springs. Try Valley Center.

"We get asked all the time, 'How did this happen?'" Valley Center History Museum historian Bob Lerner said about the town's attraction for golden-age Hollywood stars and other celebrities.

Lerner said he has no answer about why movie stars came to Valley Center, and the museum staff often finds itself amazed at other seemingly never-ending historical facts that emerge from the rural area.

In what Lerner said is just the tip of the iceberg, Valley Center is the site of the last-remaining Mexican land grant, several movies, the state's first cotton plantation and the largest grizzly bear ever recorded in California.

Some of the history is hidden in plain sight, and some of it is barely visible from behind groves of trees or at the end of dirt roads. But none of it is marked with historical plaques or on custom maps for tourists.

"You could never find these places alone, even if you had the address," Lerner said.

History buffs won't need a need to map or a plaque to find the local sites on April 28, when the Valley Center Historical Society presents a bus tour of some two dozen points of interest in the town.

The tour is a rarity and has always sold out, Lerner said. First held in 1981, this will be only the fourth time the tour has been offered. People won't get out of the bus to inspect any of the buildings on the tour, but they will hear some intriguing history lessons.

In many ways, Valley Center represents the very roots of California.

In 1845, the final Mexican governor of California, Pio Pico, issued 800 land grants throughout the state, where dons operated sprawling ranchos. Of those, only the 21,400-acre Rancho Guejito, one of the stops on the tour, remains undeveloped.

The very symbol of California, the grizzly bear, will be referred to in the tour with a stop where the largest grizzly ever recorded was shot just outside Rancho Guejito.

The big bear had been threatening people and cattle, so a rancher offered a reward for its head. The bear was bagged near the home of James and Ada Lovett in 1866 and was taken to the ranch of Col. A.E. Maxcy, where it was weighed at 2,200 pounds, according to the History Museum. The area soon became known as Bear Valley, then simply the Valley in 1874, then Valley Centre in 1878 and finally Valley Center in 1887.

Maxcy kept the skull as a trophy, but sold it to a museum in 1900. Lerner said he has spent years trying to track it down, but with no luck so far.

Besides being home of the record bear, Valley Center also had the first commercial cotton patch, which was planted in 1888 on 30 acres at Valley Center Road and Cole Grade Road, Lerner said.

A little more glamorous than the bear and the cotton plantation, many Hollywood celebrities were attracted to Valley Center.

Sometime in the 1920s, Fred Astaire began visiting his friend Col. Merritt James in Valley Center and taking hunting trips with him, Lerner said. Astaire bought James' house in 1933, the year Astaire made his debut in "Flying Down to Rio," after a successful Broadway career.

"When he was here, he had two children and two racing horses," Lerner said about Astaire's 125-acre spread. "Behind the house, there must be about 50 acres. It's gorgeous. It's beautifully manicured."

The house itself is an H-shaped adobe that Astaire had added onto.

"It's so idyllic and so secluded," Lerner said. "It's just a remarkable place. The house has been beautifully maintained. It's as solid as the day it was built."

Like all the houses on the tour, Lerner said the current owners do not want their names published.

Astaire did not keep a low profile in Valley Center, which had a population of around 5,000 over 100 square miles during his day, Lerner said. The famous dancer even was known to drop in on Saturday night barn dances at Woods Valley Road, he said.

After a string of hit musical films, Astaire decided to retire in 1946 and lived full-time in Valley Center until being lured back to Hollywood in 1948, when he sold the property and moved to Chatsworth.

Not far away is the home that Lerner said came to be known as Gary Cooper's "party house." The house hasn't been occupied for 25 years and is rundown inside, but a hint of its former glory still can be imagined. Large boulders in the front at one time must have been a stunning sight for arriving guests, and the surrounding undeveloped land is not unlike what Cooper and his guests saw.

Lerner said he does not have records of who Cooper's guests might have been, but from word of mouth to the very design of the house, the residence does seem to have been built more for entertaining then living.

"It's not very liveable, but it's a terrific place to go bowling," Lerner joked about the 70-foot long living room with European tiles, a bar and a fireplace big enough to hold six people. The house has only one bedroom and a maid's quarter.

Outside, a pool has been filled in, but there still are signs of a tennis court, Lerner said.

The tour also includes a drive by Melrose Ranch, once called the showplace of Southern California by the Los Angeles Times and the most expensive home in the county from the 1920s to 1940s.

The house was built in 1925 by British nobleman Lord Summerville, who was known to drive around town in his sports car, wearing a kilt and red tartan. It is a private residence today.

Lerner said Summerville's guests included Edward VIII, then Prince of Wales. A portrait of the prince and his eventual wife, Wallis Simpson, once hung above the estate's fireplace. In 1936, just months after ascending to the British throne, he gave up his crown to marry Simpson, an American divorcee.

The words "Uncertain Glory" on a entrance to the estate's yard refer to the title of a 1944 Errol Flynn movie shot at the site, which was surrounded by grape orchards that doubled for French vineyards during the wartime filming, Lerner said.

Besides "Uncertain Glory," Valley Center also was the location for filming in "Return of the Black Stallion" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," Lerner said about other stops on the tour.

The tour also will include the home of Agnes White Tizard, a home economist and nutrition consultant better known as Betty Crocker. White created and tested recipes for General Mills in the 1920s, and in 1924 she portrayed the fictional Betty Crocker on the country's first radio cooking show, "The Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air," which was heard nationally for 20 years. White married mining engineer William Tizard, and in 1941 the couple moved into an 1883 home in Valley Center, where she lived until her death in 1979.

Valley Center also was home to actress Merle Oberon, Western actors Randolph Scott and Big Boy Williams, and TV actor Kirby Grant, star of "Sky King."

Lerner said there is no indication that many of the town's celebrities knew one another, although he did hear a story that had John Wayne stopping by a local ice cream shop and asking, "Is Randy (Randolph Scott) around today?"

Like Astaire, Scott did not keep his celebrity hidden in Valley Center, Lerner said.

"Randolph Scott was involved in many community activities," he said. "He was involved in the Farm Bureau, racing activities, different cattlemen groups. He was very accessible."

Valley Center also was home to Martin Gang II, a lawyer whose Hollywood clients included Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny, Marilyn Monroe and Burt Lancaster.

Gang testified on behalf of Bette Davis before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and she drove to his Valley Center home to thank him personally, Lerner said.

While their homes are not part of the tour, other celebrities who once lived in Valley Center include Steve Reeves ("Hercules"), Irene Ryan ("Granny" of ''The Beverly Hillbillies,") Jack Haley ("The Wizard of Oz"), and June Allyson and Dick Powell.

Lerner said there are some pop stars now living in Valley Center, but they do not want their names known.

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.

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