Half Moon Bay Memories – Page 164 – Created by June Morrall

January 16, 2007

“Skyline” in the 1960s: Part XI (Conclusion)

(Photo: Jim Wickett, John’s son–posing on the Skyline property, about 1980).

John Wickett’s son, Jim, wasn’t kidding when he told his dad it was time for a change on the Skyline property. “Things have gone too far here,” he said.

It was time for a fresh start. John told me that “The “Flower Children” era was wilting. Jim organized a non-profit corporation called ‘Starr Hill Academy for Anything’. He converted a sawmill into his private residence.”

John proudly added that his son’s Starr Hill Academy “started to do some real good–there was less of the hippie element around and Jim had schoolchildren going up there. Students could see the remains of a sawmill and what the outdoor life was like.”

In the meantime, Jim, who was studying for a law degree–which his father believed would be useful when dealing with the county district attorney–was elected president of the Skyline Improvement Association. The deputy sheriff’s badly which he now carried “gave him a little more control over the outsiders,” explained John.

Jim became active with the Kings Mountain Fire District. A fire truck was parked on the property in return for maintaining it.

In his effort to clean up the property once and for all, Jim Wickett removed the structures that were eyesores. And as the buildings disappeared, so did the people. Jim plowed the land and planted new grass seed. “He got more into the ecology deal,” John said, “returning things to their natural state.”

When he looked back on the 1960s, John Wickett confessed: “We had so many people around for so long that my son gradually tired of the responsibility…I got so ‘relaxed’ I used to tell anybody, ‘Sure, go up there, have your company picnics, make yourselves at home….”

Eventually most of the land was sold off–and by 1979 the Wicketts owned about 500 of the original 4,400 acres.

January 14, 2007

New “History Mystery” Page

I have added a “HISTORY MYSTERY” page to my site–it’s over there, on the right. You can email me with your “history mystery” and contact info and I will post it there.

Right now we’re looking for a Pacifica “Madam”, photos of La Honda and stagecoach owner Reuben Morris.

January 13, 2007

“Skyline” in the 1960s: Part X

But the turning point had not yet come.

“The motorcyclists started coming,” John Wickett told me, laughing, “because we had all this land. On some days we had 2,000 motorcylcists running around the property.”

When the Pacific Coast Trial Championships took place there one year, a couple of thousand spectators turned up. “Cars were parked, oh, everywhere,” Wickett said. And they left deep marks, “eroding the land, making gullies and trenches. The meadows were criss-crossed with ruts and the grass wasn’t growing properly.”

Wickett told me that “in an attempt to be funny, I nailed up a sign that read: ‘No Trespassing. Gun Patrol. Survivors Will Be Prosecuted At Full Extent Of The Law’.”

…To Be Continued…

January 12, 2007

“Skyline” in the 1960s: Part IX

As the “illegal” handmade houses on John Wickett’s land attracted the attention of the local press, reporters made the difficult trek to the 4,400-acre Skyline property. Besides Kendall Whiting’s famous five-story- tall treehouse, reached by a rustic “outdoor elevator”, the men and women carrying reporter’s notebooks jotted down other activities they observed–silkscreening, glass blowing and pottery-making.

“There were lots of babies and children and cats. Lots of construction,” John Wickett told me. He said that the creative builders “ripped up parts of the old sawmill and used the wood to make little houses inside of bigger houses.”

Of course all building codes had been ignored. “Nothing had been done with building codes,” Wickett noted. This only caused the district attorney’s office to redouble their efforts to get the young free spirits off the property.

But time was still on John Wickett’s side.

While searching for a solution, John invited his son, Jim–then a student at Menlo College–to spend a summer on the Skyline land. He told Jim, “You can be helpful and get things a little bit organized. We’ve got all these materials that people are building their houses with…Maybe you could supervise a bit.”

Young Jim Wickett was so successful at his task that he stayed on after the school summer break was over. He still had much to straighten out as publicity about the place had reached far and wide. Strangers continued to arrive in caravans of day-glo painted school buses. Others camped out on the property and what was once pristine was now being threatened.

“It started becoming too much,” John Wickett said.

…To Be Continued…

January 12, 2007

I Hear From Former Herbert Hoover Jr Hi School Student Body President (1960s) Norman Rosenblatt

Norman Rosenblatt is the second young man on the left, leaning over, talking to a female student in the back of a classroom at Lincoln High School in San Francisco’s lovely Sunset District). In the mid-1960s Norman Rosenblatt was elected as the student body president of Herbert Hoover Jr Hi. His family lived a couple of blocks from my house.

His email:

“Living in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for the last 10 years.

Hope all is well with you.”

Norman Rosenblatt
General Manager, Baja Holdings
Co-Broker, Suenos del Sol
(415)-350-8222 US Cell Phone
143-1908 office ) for all 3 numbers from US
143-2797 fax ) add to the beginning 011-52-624
129-5609 cell ) for cell #, only while in Cabo
add to the beginning 044-624
[email protected] or [email protected]

January 11, 2007

I Count Myself Lucky That I Met Bruce Haig: Story by Fayden Holmboe

Story by Fayden Holmboe

When I first moved to Half Moon Bay from the Hillsdale area in the late sixties, there were a few locals that certainly stood out and it was always interesting to visit with them.

Bruce Haig seemed old to me but he was probably only about fifty. He had a weathered face like a farmer who had worked the land for many decades. Bruce was an ageless thinker, and he had more cool solutions to expensive problems than anyone Iâve ever known.

I met Bruce about 1969 as he rode his bike up to the front yard of âLittle Joeâ? Cotruvos house on the corner of Santiago and Francisco in El Granada. Bruce always rode a bike when he was off work, wherever he went to on the coast. He might be the only person in history who could smoke a pipe continually while riding up hill. His pipe had a large stainless stem between the tobacco bowl and the mouthpiece. He put toilet paper in it and this acted as the filter, “economic and efficient”, he exclaimed, owning about eight of the same design.

Bruce’s home had a window facing west that was about four- feet- high, and six-feet- wide with a fine view of the harbor. He could see Snakehead Point (also known as Pillar Point) and to the south the fog horn on the breakwater.

About 1975 new neighbors built a two-story house on the lot immediately to the west of Bruceâs 4 x 6 foot window blocking his entire coastal panorama. There was nothing but a wall of stucco looking back at Bruce. Bleak at best and the only thing breaking up the monotony of the wall was a very small sliding glass window and that was way up on the second floor.

Bruce went over, pipe in mouth, introduced himself to the new neighbors and asked in his always low-key voice, would they mind if he âpainted a mural on the blank wall of their home?” They said okay so Bruce drew what was missing from his ocean view on their stucco wall.

You could still see the “real view” from other windows in Bruce’s dining room. If you stood in the dining room you could compare the “real view” with the painted one on the stucco wall and then back again to the “real view”.

This same 4×6 window was broken in the top right corner, with about two feet missing from it. Most people would have replaced the window. Instead Bruce got out his salvaged pieces of stained glass, channeled lead, then made and installed a beautiful little stained glass sun with rays coming off it in this corner.

Bruce was the shop teacher at Hillcrest Reform School in San Mateo, and he had so many talents besides woodworking. A good sense of humor was one so the kids would obey him, I’m sure.

There were many dimensions to Bruce. He was an accomplished potter, had a kiln and a few potters’ wheels in the backyard. If he found a log in the woods or on the beach, he’d carve it; if he found some scrap metal he’d make a fancy wind vane out of it. But the result was never just average. Whatever Bruce Haig made was finished, thought out, and well done.

In the late sixties Bruce said he didn’t like the violence on t.v. so as his personal statement he took an old Phillips t.v., gutted it and covered the screen with fabric. That was the only channel you could watch!

If you met Bruce on the street you would never have dreamed he was as creative as he truly was, an inspiration to me for sure, and funny to boot!

Long live the Bruce Haigs of the world!!!

(Watercolor of Snakehead Point and the beach at El Granada by Galen Wolf).

January 11, 2007

The House Built Entirely Of Doors

The San Mateo-Half Moon Bay Road’s (Highway 92) famous “House of Doors” was built by Fred Nordholz, a German saloon owner. According to legend, the doors were used in buildings at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition held in San Francisco. When the spectacular international show closed, Nordholz purchased the doors and shipped them down to Half Moon Bay where he built a house with them. Later in the 1950s Half Moon Bay’s colorful, outspoken Mayor Ann Howe (yes, think “An how!”) bought the house, hoping to turn it into a museum.

January 10, 2007

Margie’s Experience at Grace Ball Secretarial School (1960s)

Here’s the link to the original story by Lynn K. McCloskey about the Grace Ball Secretarial School in San Francisco: http://www.halfmoonbaymemories.com/2006/11/08/1287/
And an email from Margie Burns who attended the school in the late 1960s:

I went there, too, met Grace Ball herself and Ruth. Except it was Mrs. Roof “like the roof on a house.”

I remember the typing teacher, though not her name. She, too, was one of the Ancient Ones. Of course we were in our 20s (early, early if that).

I use my shorthand to this day. Have lost a lot but still use it.

I rented my own apartment in San Francisco and rode the cable car to school daily. I had friends who lived in/boarded.

My experience wasn’t as bad as hers . I don’t remember being pinned to the wall by Grace but rather sitting across the desk from her.

The school was directly over an art gallery; the drug store was on the corner of Powell and Sutter. Unfortunately, it didn’t last the entire year I was thre. Popular meting place before and after class, though.

I must have been there 1967, 1968. When did the writer attend? It’s just possible we were in the same class.

From Margie S.

January 10, 2007

“Skyline” in the 1960s: Part VIII

(Recap: A number of seriously creative handmade houses dotted John Wickett’s scenic 4,400-acre Skyline property in the 1960s. They were tucked away, difficult to find, usually by invitation only– reached by hiking on crooked dirt paths, muddy in the spring– ducking under tangled tree limbs while pushing away dense leafy foliage… )

Predictably, none of the fantastic structures were designed to meet county building codes. After all they were built to challenge the imagination. One house featured a storybook “drawbridge with chains and platforms”.

But perhaps the most sensational creation was the fabulous treehouse built by Kendall Whiting.

“Kendall’s treehouse was five stories tall, 50 feet above the ground,” John Wickett told me. “He put in an elevator and a suspended sliding cable…”

Five stories tall? An elevator? 50 feet above ground?

No wonder Kendall Whiting’s magical treehouse was the talk of Skyline and Beyond. (And that’s what it was, truly magical– I know, I actually rode in the “elevator” to the top of the treehouse).

But Whiting’s treehouse became so famous that it also brought worries. “We were afraid of lawsuits,” John admitted. He had good reason to be concerned. By now word had spread fast about the flower children who lived in fantastic houses on an incredible mountain with huge redwoods and cool meadows.

“Too many people were getting up around there,” Wickett said, “and it was getting to be a problem. All the sightseers wanted to see the property and the treehouse.”

(Sadly, eventually Kendall Whiting would fall out of his treehouse–and the amazing structure he created was torn down.)

…To Be Continued…

January 9, 2007

History Mystery….Is Pacifica’s Notorious Madam, Dolly Fine?

photo: The McCloskey Castle in Pacifica. Photo courtesy Sam Mazza Estate.

Readers, Kathy Alberts asks: “Do you know anything about the history of the house at 2 Carmel Avenue in Pacifica? I used to live there and was told that during the 20s it was owned by a Madame named Dolly Fine(?) who used to help the rum runners and also worked in partnership with the McCloskey castle house, directly up the hill. Any information you can provide me would be much appreciated.”

If you have the answer, please email Kathy at Do you know anything about the history of the house at 2 Carmel Avenue in Pacifica? I used to live there and was told that during the 20s it was owned by a Madame named Dolly Fine(?) who used to help the rum runners and also worked in partnership with the McCloskey castle house, directly up the hill. Any information you can provide me would be much appreciated.

If you have the answer, please email Kathy at [email protected]