Carlsbad seeks new live-in caretaker for Leo Carrillo park

By: BARBARA HENRY - Staff Writer | Wednesday, May 30, 2007 10:56 PM PDT ∞

CARLSBAD -- Want a rare chance to live rent-free on a former movie star's 27-acre, historic ranch in eastern Carlsbad?

If you get the job as the new live-in caretaker for Leo Carrillo Ranch Historic Park, your kids can move in with you, but you can't bring a puppy because dogs aren't allowed on city park property. You'll also have to give up your weekends because that's when you must do most of the caretaker duties at the park.

And your nights may not be blissful -- you could be driven absolutely bonkers on spring evenings by the raucous mating calls of the many peacocks who live at the rustic ranch at the end of Carrillo Way.

Despite these downsides, city of Carlsbad employees who've previously held the caretaker's spot at the historic park speak of the place with a distinct fondness.

Where else in the rapidly growing coastal community can someone have a home surrounded by 27 acres of undeveloped land? asked Mike Bliss, a city Parks Department employee, as he described what led him to take the job nearly a decade ago.

"I thought, what a unique opportunity," he recalled Wednesday.

In order to take it, Bliss temporarily rented his home in Vista and figured he'd last six months to a year as a ranch resident. Now, nearly a decade later, Bliss finally has had to leave. He moved out last month.

He had to go, he said, because he's recently become a supervisor in the Parks Department and the city doesn't think he should be doing both jobs.

So Carlsbad now needs a new live-in person to care for the land. The application deadline is June 29. Contact the city at (760) 476-1042 or e-mail mcala@ci.carlsbad.ca.us for details.

You'll have to mow the lawn, clean the restrooms, provide guided tours of the ranch and pick up stray trash, among other things. You'll need to look presentable during the 25 to 30 hours a week that the city expects you to perform your duties, and you'll have keep your stereo turned down during the park's night-time quiet hours.

You won't be a city employee. Carlsbad now has a policy that the caretaker job must go to an independent contractor. Also, you won't get to live in the historic hacienda --- Bliss was the last person allowed to do that.

But there are other benefits.

In exchange for being the park's protector, you'll live rent-free in a two-bedroom, two-bath, nearly new mobile home. Your electric bills will be paid and you'll collect a $5,000 a year stipend.

And, you'll be part of a very exclusive club. Only three people have held the caretaker's spot in the decades since the city acquired the property from one of Carrillo's relatives, said Mick Calarco, the city recreation area manager responsible for the ranch.

Former city employee Keith Beverly was the first city caretaker. In an interview with the North County Times weeks before the park opened to the public in 2003, Beverly said he was unemployed and desperately seeking a job when he heard about Carlsbad's caretaker's spot.

"I remember the first time I drove down this dirt road here," he said, eyeing the ranch entrance. "It was like I dropped back 100 years."

Park historians report that the ranch was designed to evoke that feeling -- to bring back California's historic rancho days. Actor Leo Carrillo, who is perhaps best known for his comic sidekick role as Pancho in the 1950s TV series "The Cisco Kid," has been described as a master showman who entertained many Hollywood celebrities at his ranch. By some accounts, actors Clark Gable and Carole Lombard spent their honeymoon there.

When Beverly moved in during the late 1970s, the ranch was still a remote spot.

"I still remember that first night I lived out here," he said, adding that he had a knife and a German shepherd to keep him company. "I was scared to death."

In addition to the dog, he had the peacocks for companions. At that time, the property housed 125 mating pairs; now there are several dozen.

"(During mating season), I would have to go on vacation -- they would literally drive me nuts," Beverly recalled, laughing.

The peacock chorus remains.

"It's like being next to an airport, you get used to it after a while," Bliss reports.

But the property isn't the isolated spot it once was. These days, a six-lane road comes within yards of the rancho and subdivisions surround it.

-- Contact staff writer Barbara Henry at (760) 901-4072 or bhenry@nctimes.com.