By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY
Historian
Skyland Campground – first established in the 1890s on the cliff overlooking San Bernardino – was surveyed and subdivided into vacation cabin sites by developers Ramsay and Charles S. Mann in 1923.
The Skyland forest theme they advertised emphasized the romance of the history of the Skyland area with street names like Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Neptune and Inspiration. Skyland Drive is a semicircular street that curves southward from Crest Forest Drive toward the crest and back to the main road.
Pictured at Jerry Fitzgerald’s Mountain Lodge are actress June Havoc; Jerry Fitzgerald; Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, who also had a vacation home in Skyland; Little Jerry and William Spier.
Mann in his advertising brochure wrote about Skyland in 1925: “There is no sense of congestion, nor are there rows of houses visible, each being screened, to a certain extent…by the land contours and large, full trees.” Skyland became the expensive section of the Crestline community. As Mann developed the rest of the town, he maintained a higher price in Skyland due to its historically desirable location and fantastic views out to the Pacific Ocean.
The subdivision slowly grew, one house at a time, and soon the Crestline school bus was driving along Skyland Drive, picking up students attending the Crest Forest School, which opened in 1929. Skyland attracted many movie stars, such as Bella Lugosi, when buying mountain retreats near the Skyland movie studio, becoming the upscale residential section of Crestline. As the years progressed, newer sections of Skyland were developed with larger homes.
The modernized Skyland Inn continued to host vacationers until 1955 when the Inn was again destroyed by fire. Jerry Fitzgerald’s Mountain Lodge was popular among the stars in the 1950s, one of the many popular hangouts for the rich and famous serving delicious meals in Skyland. It unfortunately also burned down, possibly in the 1960s.
In 1980, the Panorama Fire licked the Skyland area, forcing all residents to evacuate as the fire threatened to burn the area like it had in 1911. After the fire, the National Forest decided to verify its borders.
In December 1982, after many years of Skyland being a quiet residential alcove off the beaten path, the governmental re-survey of National Forest land discovered that the original 1923 survey was in error. Seventeen homeowners had unknowingly purchased and built on National Forest land, so the conflict was on.
Respected judge of the Crest Forest Justice Court, David Press, was one of those impacted, discovering that half his house was on government land. He was especially surprised since there were homes on all four sides of him. The forest boundary went directly through the middle of his living room, so the government owned half of his home and the land under it.
The 2003 Old Fire ravaged Skyland after it jumped Highway 18. This is Jupiter Lane.
The government wanted the homeowners to tear down their homes, some built over 60 years before. This put all 17 homeowners in the position of not having clear nor conveyable titles to their homes. The story hit newspapers and Los Angeles TV for several years. The unhappy homeowners sued, telling their story of woe. Who was responsible? Would they lose their homes? Was there any compensation?
When all the legal entanglements were finally settled in 1984 after much grief, the homes were allowed to stay, but the government demanded payment for the encroachment on its land, insisting on the Forest Service exchange price of $2,000 an acre. No one was happy with the settlement, but homeowners were relieved the conflict was finally over.
Fortunately, only two property owners, the Millers and Morans, had to pay for more than half an acre, and all homeowners were prorated on the percentage of an acre of their unintentional encroachment. Judge David Press willingly paid the additional $186 to keep his house and clear the title to his land. This resulted in unusual ownership deeds to the properties, since most homeowners now had two deeds attached to each property, plus two property tax bills, unless the property owner paid additional money to the county for a lot consolidation.
The 2003 Old Fire did more than lick the Skyland area. The fire raced up Waterman Canyon to Skyland Peak, destroying 33 homes on the southeast side of Skyland, during the first 24 hours of the seven-day-long fire. The cabins destroyed were in a densely treed area on the south side of Skyland Drive, on small original lots (which the county considered substandard, unbuildable lots from the Ramsay and Mann subdivision era) on very narrow private, one-car-wide, sharply twisty streets that fire engines could not safely enter.
The firefighters made their stand on Skyland Drive, successfully protecting the entire Crestline community from destruction. The fire jumped Skyland Drive in only one spot, singeing three homes, but the fire was stopped in Skyland.
Crest Forest Municipal Advisory Council member Gil Flores inspecting the damage from the Old Fire in 2003.
Down the hill at the evacuation centers, the maps showing the burn areas were vague on which homes were completely burned down or only singed. Because most of the TV reporters couldn’t figure out the names of the various communities, mislabeling most of them, uncertainty and distress reigned until residents returned three weeks later.
Since the 2003 Old Fire, the affected area has been cleared of all the burned homes and trees. Despite the construction of about a dozen homes of the 33 destroyed in the area, it is still devoid of most greenery in the burned residential area. The National Forest lands on the south slope have regrown underbrush, but few trees.
Skyland is the original developed area of Crestline. It has a long and colorful history, but most are unaware of its location and its long historical significance today.
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