Residents of tight-knit Bachelor Hill area of Croy Canyon vow to
rebuild as county ponders lack of permits
Twenty years ago Carl Taylor packed his belongings, moved out of
a warehouse near downtown San Jose and landed amid the redwoods and
manzanita of Bachelor Hill in Croy Canyon.
Residents of tight-knit Bachelor Hill area of Croy Canyon vow to rebuild as county ponders lack of permits
Twenty years ago Carl Taylor packed his belongings, moved out of a warehouse near downtown San Jose and landed amid the redwoods and manzanita of Bachelor Hill in Croy Canyon.
He was 26, a recent college graduate, and looking to escape the blaring sirens of a hectic city for the peace and solitude or an urban-area wilderness. He wanted to ride his dirt bike, shoot his gun and turn up the stereo without disturbing the neighbors.
He realized his dream on 20 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains north of Croy Road. The terrain was steep, studded with chaparral and accessible only by a narrow dirt road that winds its way through the mountains like a giant maze two-dozen or more miles to Los Gatos. He couldn’t see his nearest neighbor a quarter mile away.
“It’s isolated, it’s dusty, it’s dirty and its rough,” Taylor said.
Taylor’s tenure on the mountain has made him the unofficial Mayor of Bachelor Hill, about two dozen residents in a tight-knit community of cabins, trailers and makeshift housing structures destroyed by the Croy Canyon Fire, the region’s biggest in 80 years. Altogether 34 homes on 3,100 acres were reduced to rubble, leaving the homeless pondering a rebuilding effort in an area so off the county’s radar, most homes lacked permits.
It’s the kind of place where everyone knows each other, even the fellow whose solar system somehow malfunctioned, sparking the blaze. The man spent most of last weekend devastated, apologizing one-by-one to neighbors, shaking hands, unable to adequately express his remorse.
“They’re good people and they don’t deserved what has happened,” said Steve Slusser, a 20-year resident of Bachelor Hill, who maintained there was no need for apology. “Life is such a crap shoot and they just rolled snake eyes. They were just up here trying to live the American dream.”
Most of the residents of Bachelor Hill lacked fire insurance. How could they get it? The Santa Clara County Planning Department didn’t even know many of them were there. And the 10-mile dirt-road loop along which many of the homes were built would be hard for fire trucks to navigate, which is an obstacle to insurance carriers. Affordability is another issue.
“I talked to them about fire insurance and they said they won’t insure houses up in the mountains like this, so I just dropped it at that,” said Dave Newton, who’s 22-year-old cabin was spared. “I just said ‘well, whatever’ and I never really looked into it again. Now I find out some of my neighbors have insurance. I will be getting it now.”
Residents are aware of the risks, but trade them for the isolation and up-close look at nature that the mountain affords them.
Not even a weeklong fire can pry them away.
“I would never even give it a thought,” said Slusser. “In the first place I don’t believe lightning strikes twice. The chance of the same type of fire occurring is greatly diminished.”
Meet the mayor
Taylor, with his thick long beard, is the John Muir of the mountain, which he has explored now for two decades. When the electronics designer and consultant first moved into his cabin-style home, he set up his computers, then took off on foot to hike the 10-mile loop, introducing himself to his neighbors along the way.
Now all that’s left of his home and contents would fit into a yard bin. Taylor, his wife and two kids are lucky to have found a place to stay – a nearby cabin, that was graciously lent to them.
Others are doubling up with neighbors. Tom King, who lost his home, is staying with a friend whose home was spared. It’s awfully close quarters, especially considering the reason why residents were attracted to Croy to begin with.
“I didn’t have to see anyone here,” said King. “Not that I’m a total recluse, I just don’t like to see other people’s homes.”
Even with the flora gone the blackened, rugged terrain still allows the feeling of isolation.
The birth of Bachelor Hill
Living remotely forces humans to become more resilient, to fix things when they break. If a water line cracks, there’s no water company to call. If the generator or solar panel goes out, there’s no power company to fix it. It would be tough to find a plumber willing to make the trek.
The rugged lifestyle is why the area that was burned became known as “Bachelor Hill,” as city dwellers began to rediscover that a place existed that was close enough to commute to San Jose, yet remote enough to see the Milky Way in the early 1980s. Residents say it’s hard to find women – and even men – who appreciate the lifestyle.
“At first it was a whole bunch of single guys; girlfriends would just come and go,” Taylor said. “They would see it and just run away.”
Taylor eventually met his wife, Robin, who could live without creature comforts such as a clothes dryer and a nearby grocery store. It can take 30 minutes to drive to Morgan Hill for shopping.
“I figured she was a pretty good woman when she started hauling water back to wash dishes,” he said.
Not every resident of Bachelor Hill has been as lucky as Taylor.
“No normal girl is going to want to live in the country like this,” said Newton, a barrel-chested man with a thick mustache, whose cabin was spared. “You can attract the women, but they come up for only a short time, like maybe two or three months and then it’s icky. They don’t like it after a while, it gets too dirty.”
Newton, a carpenter at IBM, bought 10 acres and remodeled the cabin on it 22 years ago. It was after a stint on a friend’s remote ranch, where he found he liked living without neighbors.
“I lived in town and my house got broken into probably five or six times in five years – and I had a couple of cars stolen,” Newton said. “It’s just peaceful here, and I’ll never leave. I’ll always live in the country.”
His two-story cabin with a wooden deck overlooking a valley of redwoods was threatened on all sides by the blaze. He tells a horrifying tale of the fire nipping at his back porch, melting insulation, igniting potted plans hanging from the eaves and blistering his skin.
Ignoring the sheriff’s demands to leave his house, Newton said he used anything he could get his hands on to save his home. He doused the fire with water from a small plastic swimming pool that his dogs used for drinking, scooped water from a fish tank, sprayed the fire with cans of root beer and says he would have drained his car radiator if he had thought of it.
Out of ammo with which to fight, Newton felt his home was about to be destroyed. Suddenly a CDF helicopter appeared from the smoke, a divine moment for a man who doesn’t go to church.
“Jesus Christ flies a helicopter,” Newton said.
Grateful his home was spared, he took in neighbors Tom King and Michael Mueller when King’s corrugated, galvanized steel home, a 24-year project still in the making, was destroyed.
“It still wasn’t done, it was never done,” said King, stroking his waist-length beard. “It was probably one of the reasons it burned. All the eaves and stuff are supposed to be lined with metal, but I just never got that far. I never got that far ahead. That’s the way people live around here, just day to day, month to month, hand to hand.”
King not only lost his home, but his livelihood. In a workshop he built tracks for model railroads for a company in Morgan Hill. All of his tools were destroyed.
He didn’t have insurance, but now he wants to buy a trailer, which county zoning allows, set up another workshop and start over on his 20-acre mountainside. He understands why even after a disaster, residents are staying put.
“When you’ve been up here for a week you would probably know,” said Mueller, who has lived with King off and on over the years. “When there isn’t a disaster it’s extremely beautiful. It’s almost priceless.”
Mueller, a soft-spoken mountain of a man with a thick beard, goes to town once a week for food and other necessities. To earn money, he helps a neighbor restore antique furniture.
The neighbors are getting some outside help to help them recover. Taylor is a Clamper, a men’s social organization that traces its history back to the Gold Rush days, when miners would take care of a fellow miner’s family in the event of a deadly accident.
When the local chapter called Taylor offering to help, he pointed them to King and Mueller, who received a water tank and $400.
It’s just one of many acts of kindness neighbors have been bestowing upon each other.
“We’re gritty people and we don’t let adversity get us down,” said Slusser. “This place had a bad reputation. People thought druggies and outlaws lived up there. It’s about time that damn myth was put to rest. I think the reputation of this whole area can get a big leg up because it will bring people together. People will see how people can be resilient and can bounce back after adversity. I know there is going to be a lot of rebuilding cause its already started.”
The fire skirted Yvonne and Steve Slusser’s home, which took him 11 years to build, but the heat and resulting wind broke windows, caused extensive smoke damage and left the home looking as if a tornado had blown through. The couple is living in part an unscathed lower unit while they repair the damage.
Slusser, who spent 14 years working as an insurance agent in another life, had $125,000 worth of fire insurance, but, like most of his neighbors, he didn’t have building permits.
He had applied for them on several occasions but didn’t feel like waiting.
“I’m not getting younger. I’m 63; I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a hot little house trailer,” he said. “I had to keep going with my dream while I’m still young enough to enjoy it.”
Concern about the future
Building permits are now on everyone’s mind.
“Typically we don’t patrol areas like that like a policeman, we don’t have the manpower to do that,” said Tom Avon, the senior building Inspector for the Santa Clara County building inspections office, who seemed surprised by the lack of permits.
An inspector has been driving a Jeep from house to house in the fire ravaged area, taking pictures, trying to compile information on the damage that was done to each structure.
Avon says the building inspections office does not know what is going to happen to the un-permitted structures, but it usually takes a firm stance: “We don’t issue permits to rebuild something that was never permitted in the first place.”
The lack of permits and the public discovery of their Shangri La worry some residents looking to rebuild. Supervisor Don Gage, who represents the district, has called for amnesty for Croy residents and wants the county to speed up the permit application process, something the Board of Supervisors will consider.
“If they set restrictions they can’t do it on just us, they have to do it on everyone and it crossed into Santa Cruz,” said Anita Farruggia, now in a trailer with her longtime friend, Patrick Walton.
“They weren’t interested in giving you permits if there were no complaints. If there were no complaints, they left you alone,” Farruggia said. “They really weren’t bothered with us before. It would be really sad if they would take an incident like this, because if you comb all these hills that are around here, they’re dotted with people just like us.”
Farruggia moved to Bachelor Hill after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake sparked a fire that destroyed her Morgan Hill home.
“It’s not easy living, but the people that live here, they’re hearty, they’re honest and they just like their peace and quiet,” Farruggia said.
Even Walton, who lived in a tent when he first settled his 40-acre property, said that’s preferable to moving away if the county won’t let him rebuild.
“You’ll have to drag me out, that’s the only way I’m going,” Walton said.
