A relic of Hollywood's golden era gives up the ghost
USC plans to sell comic Jack Oakie's estate to a developer, erasing
one of the last traces of the San Fernando Valley as a getaway for the
stars.
By Bob Pool, Times Staff Writer
August 2, 2007
TIME stands still at Oakridge.
The stone house on the Northridge hilltop is locked. Through its
darkened windows can be glimpsed empty rooms that for nearly a half-
century echoed with the laughter of comic actor Jack Oakie and a
nonstop flow of Hollywood buddies.
Its curving driveway, circling an ancient oak, is cracked. The back
lawn, where Oakie and his celebrity friends lazed away summer days by
the pool, is overgrown and brown.
Oakridge is a monument to a long-vanished lifestyle in the San
Fernando Valley, perhaps the last of the multi-acre ranches that stars
from Hollywood's golden era bought in what then was the outskirts of
town.
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz had one down the street from Oakridge.
Zeppo Marx, the brother of Groucho, Harpo and Chico, owned one in
Northridge. So did actor William Holden and actress Janet Gaynor.
Studio mogul Harry Warner had a working ranch in Woodland Hills that
is now Warner Center.
As development spread across the Valley floor, the Hollywood ranchos
disappeared one by one.
Oakie and his family were determined that Oakridge would not meet the
same fate.
Until he died in 1978 at the age of 74, the radio and movie comedian
battled to preserve low-density agricultural zoning around the home.
His wife, Victoria, continued his fight, persuading Los Angeles
officials to designate Oakridge a historic-cultural monument in 1990.
Two years before her death in 2003 at the age of 91, she bequeathed
the estate to the USC School of Cinematic Arts. "I feel it is too
beautiful to be torn down when I'm gone," she told city officials.
But time is ticking at Oakridge.
USC has decided to sell the house and land, and use the money for its
film school.
A developer is weeks away from buying the nine-acre estate near
Devonshire Street and Reseda Boulevard for a 28-home subdivision. City
officials, meantime, are scrambling to preserve Oakie's English manor-
style house. They would like to buy it and turn it into a cultural
center that would salute pioneering Hollywood figures who had their
own ranchettes in the Valley.
"The Oakie house is one of the last vestiges of the San Fernando
Valley's personal connection to the movie industry," said City
Councilman Greig Smith, who represents the Chatsworth and Northridge
areas. "James Cagney's ranch is gone. Lucy and Desi's is gone. Roy
Rogers and Dale Evans' is gone."
THE 6,400-square-foot home was designed by architect Paul R. Williams
and built in 1937 for actress Barbara Stanwyck. She sold it to Oakie
in 1940 when she married another Northridge resident, actor Robert
Taylor.
In his biography, "Jack Oakies' Double Takes," the actor recounted the
idyllic early days in Northridge:
"When we bought our little ranch, very few people lived out our way.
The mailman, who whiled away his time at our house, told me that of
the 40 or so names and addresses that comprised the town, there were
days when not even one of them had a letter for him to deliver."
In those days, groceries had to be brought in from Hollywood and
Beverly Hills, he recalled in Victoria Oakie's 1980 memoir, "Jack
Oakie's Oakridge."
"For an ice cream, we used to have to bicycle five miles down to
Topanga Canyon and Devonshire Street to the old two-story brick
complex called the Chrysler Building. It had the only drugstore and
ice cream fountain in all of the far northwest Valley. On those
bicycle trips we could take off our sweaters and hang them on a branch
of a grapefruit tree in an orchard along Devonshire Street and
two or three hours later come by and pick them up on the way home."
Oakie planted orange, lemon, apricot, plum, peach, lime and fig trees.
Friends such as boxing champion Jack Dempsey helped water them when
they dropped in to visit. And there was a steady stream of friends of
the former vaudeville performer turned radio and TV personality.
Former Los Angeles TV weatherman George Fischbeck visited Oakridge to
"play cards and drink whiskey" with Oakie and his friends.
"It's not a Hollywood-type mansion. It was a good house. And that's
the way he was, a good man," said Fischbeck, of Woodland Hills. "We
played around a table that wasn't that fancy. Vickie would bring in
sandwiches. She took good care of Jack - she put up his pictures on
the wall of his den, a side room off the kitchen."
In another of her books, "Life With Jack Oakie," Victoria Oakie
explained why she and her husband never moved from the Valley to Palm
Springs, like other Hollywood figures did in the 1960s.
"My husband was very proud of the eight bathrooms that we had at
Oakridge. Jack always believed that we had the best and that it was
best to hold on to it," she wrote.
For a time, the couple felt secure that zoning restrictions would
protect them. Not so.
In 1962, Jack Oakie organized Northridge neighbors to protest the use
of a home near him as a Delta Upsilon fraternity house for students at
San Fernando Valley State College, (now Cal State Northridge). The
students made noise until 3 and 4 a.m. and jammed narrow streets in
the area, Oakie complained.
OAKIE chafed at the widening of Devonshire Street, which took away
Oakridge's original stone gateway. He watched unhappily as shopping
centers were built nearby at Reseda and Devonshire and the hill next
to his house was flattened to make room for a Chevrolet dealership.
The meadow just south of the pool and the Oakridge estate was the site
of Northridge Farms, a thoroughbred ranch. Its last 98 acres were sold
for development in 1961 over the Oakies' objections. In 1966, the City
Council voted to allow 7,500-square-foot lots on the Northridge Farms
site instead of estate-sized 15,000-square-foot lots.
"The vultures began to descend," Victoria Oakie recalled later.
After Oakie died in 1978, Victoria Oakie devoted her life to keeping
his name alive.
She gave 47 boxes of Oakie's papers and memorabilia to the University
of Wyoming, which promised to build a replica of Oakie's den in which
to display them.
In 1989, she asked the city's Cultural Affairs Commission to declare
Oakridge a historic-cultural monument.
The city designation provides a layer of protection from removal or
remodeling, said Ken Bernstein, manager of the city planning
department's office of historic resources.
"Monument status means that if one was to propose demolition, which
they are not, the Cultural Heritage Commission could file a 180-day
objection with an additional 180-day extension," Bernstein said.
At USC, where Oakie had been friends with a succession of university
presidents since the 1930s when he filmed collegiate-themed comedies
there, Victoria Oakie endowed a Jack Oakie Chair faculty position and
a Jack Oakie Comedy Scholarship program for students. Last year it
awarded a $12,000 scholarship for excellence in writing or directing
comedy as well as $4,000 awards for screenwriting, animation,
directing and cinema excellence.
But now the university is poised to sell Oakie's beloved home.
University officials said the school cannot find a proper use for the
property, which needs to be occupied and maintained if it is to
survive. Under the provisions of Victoria Oakie's bequest, proceeds
from any sale of the property go to the USC cinema school.
Smith said the city negotiated a complex deal last year involving a
developer with plans to acquire Oakridge from USC.
Under the deal, the city would drop its landmark status for the open
land behind the Oakie house, allowing Greystone/Lennar Homes to build
28 homes on the south and west sides of the property. In exchange, the
developer would sell the Oakie home to the city for $1 million.
But that developer's plans fell through.
A new builder, Westlake Village-based Trimark Pacific Homes, expects
to complete its acquisition of the Oakie property by the end of the
summer - but the fate of the historic home remains uncertain.
ACCORDING to Smith, Trimark was unaware of the previous agreement to
sell the Oakie residence to the city. The firm now plans to have a
professional appraisal done before announcing the structure's selling
price.
Trimark executive Steve Kessler agreed that renovating the 70-year-old
structure would be costly.
"Whoever buys it has to have a passionate desire and spend a lot of
money," Kessler said.
Kristina E. Raspe, USC's senior vice president for real estate and
asset management, said escrow is expected to close in September. She
said the university supports the city's effort to preserve the Oakie
home.
Commercial real estate agent Mark Perry, who represents USC in the
pending sale, said unexpected visitors show up each time he unlocks
the Devonshire Street gate leading to Oakridge's driveway. As if on
cue, up walked Brett Garman.
"What a beautiful place! Wow!" exclaimed Garman, a nurseryman who
lives in Granada Hills. "I've driven by this place a billion times and
always wondered what's back here."
Garman, who was raised in Chatsworth, said he remembers some of the
other celebrities who had ranches in the northwest Valley.
"Lucille Ball's place was at Oso and Devonshire. Chatsworth used to be
all orange groves," he said.
Perry gave him permission to walk around the outside of the house and
Garman was impressed when he returned.
Jack Oakie wasn't joking about the place being special, he said,
agreeing with the actor that Oakridge deserves to be preserved.
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bob.pool.DeleteThis@latimes.com
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Back story
Comedian Jack Oakie started his career in 1924 as a Broadway chorus
boy, and he performed in movies and on radio and television. He
usually played second fiddle to larger stars but was famous for
stealing scenes from them with breezy wisecracks and comedic double
takes.
He appeared in 87 films, including the 1940 Charlie Chaplin film "The
Great Dictator," which brought him an Academy Award nomination for
best supporting actor.
Described as being as witty off-screen as on, Oakie remained a popular
Hollywood figure even after he went into semiretirement in the 1960s.
Oakridge was the frequent setting of parties that drew sports figures,
celebrities and noncelebrities.
Oakie was born Lewis Delaney Offield in Missouri but grew up in
Oklahoma, which inspired his stage name.
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Source: Times research
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