As rural community grows, counterculture texture fades. (Spotlight on Topanga Canyon).

by Fine, Howard

Los Angeles Business Journal • July 29, 2002 •

THE Topanga business district is so small that it literally fits the cliche: "Don't blink, or you'll miss it." It's a few stores along the sweeping curves of Topanga Canyon Boulevard that winds from the San Fernando Valley to the ocean.

But the businesses show just how much Topanga has changed from its bohemian counterculture days to a suburban bedroom community where once cheap land values have skyrocketed.

"The canyon is becoming more gentrified," said Susan Nissman, field deputy to L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who represents most of the area. "A lot of wealthy people are moving in because they are the only ones who can afford the prices now."

At the core of this transformation is Pine Tree Circle center, located on the sharp curve where Old Topanga Road ends at Topanga Canyon Boulevard. It's at the northern end of Topanga's half-mile-long business strip, just across the street from the popular Inn of the Seventh Ray restaurant.

When it opened two years ago, the two-story Pine Tree Circle center with stores and office space became the canyon's first traditional retail center although with a supermarket and bank it is hardly a one-stop shopping center.

"Topanga had been a community without a real center, where people could gather as they go about their daily business," said Leslie Carlson, owner of Topanga Home Grown, a gift boutique and clothing store. Carlson and her developer husband Steve built the center.

A smaller two-story retail center had been across the street for decades, but its location was barely visible from the roadside. As soon as Pine Tree Circle opened, several tenants bolted for the larger center.

The 28-unit Pine Tree Circle center includes a cafe, rug store, gift shop, clothing store and art gallery. On the top floor are various professional tenants, including an accountant and a medical practice.

Although residents must drive eight miles to the Valley or even further to Pacific Palisades for groceries, the center has brought some added convenience.

"We tried to get a bank branch in here and talked with eight or nine banks, but they all said the demographics just wouldn't work," Carlson said. "We hope that will change soon."

For decades, the unincorporated county community was a remote rural outpost, with a mix of farmers, ranchers and those seeking escape from the urban pressures of a growing Los Angeles.

Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, hippies and other counterculture types moved in, lured by relatively cheap rents, the rustic feel and a thriving music scene.

But over the last 15 years, the counterculture population has left and housing prices have ballooned. Tighter environmental regulations and a lack of buildable space have put the clamps on new development and made adding onto existing dwellings more difficult.

In the last five years, prices for even the cheaper Topanga homes have gone from the $275,000 range to as much as $500,000, according to Paul Ferra, sales associate for Coldwell Banker, who covers the Topanga area.

One benefit of Pine Tree Circle is that it has allowed several residents with growing home-based businesses to set up office or retail space.

"Our business just got too big to be in our founder's house any more, so when this opened up, we came right in here," said Nancy Christmas, chief financial officer of fruit juice maker Juice Harvest, located at the center.

Pine Tree Circle was a long time in coming. It took nine years to wend its way through the approval process at both the county and the California Coastal Commission. (Even though the community of Topanga is five miles from the Pacific Ocean, it still falls within the purview of the commission.)

Given the difficulties in building new commercial or residential buildings, there's little prospect of significant new commercial space coming on the market anytime soon.

While the funkiness that defined the counterculture era of the 1960s and '70s is long gone, there's still a slight new-agey feel to the place.

"The cafe serves sandwiches on baguettes, which is something one associates more with Montana Avenue (in Santa Monica) and not Topanga," said Lee Bloom, owner of Topanga Mail and Message and publisher of a quarterly business newsletter.

COPYRIGHT 2002 CBJ, L.P. Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Copyright 2002, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.