July 4, 2006 - The Oxnard Getaway

July 4, 2006 - The Oxnard Getaway

A couple of weeks ago my wife IM and I found ourselves at the Best Western Motel on South Oxnard Boulevard just southwest of its three-way intersection with Wooley Road and Seviers Road. We were there to tour a new home development being built near the western end of Wooley Road, a complete community constructed around a newly created harbor with boat docks for highest end homes and harbor views for the next high-end of the scale and a posh zip code for the low-end residence sheltered from the views by the other two. The Best Western has wireless DSL access in every room proclaims the sign outside and it was right. At the entrance to the sprawling two-story beige stucco hotel is a sign on a light post with a blue background and a orange sunburst covering most of the blue with the words “Downtown Oxnard” spelled out in white identifying where we were, which is three-quarters of a century away from the new development we’re here to visit. Across the busy four-lane street is a lumber yard that takes up a good part of the block opposite the hotel. Part of the single-story building hiding most of the lumber at the left as you face the structure is painted a deep maroon color and rest to the right is painted a baby blue. All the lumber in the yard is not hidden though; neat stacks of boards are stored in the area in front of the long building that extends a good part of a block.

Oxnard, California is a sleepy farming town in Ventura County, California about 90 miles north of Los Angeles. It lies at the western edge of a fertile alluvial plain created by years of run off from the Topatopa Mountains off to the east. Two major influences on the community are the Navy presence at Point Mugu and the deep water harbor at Port Hueneme, which was originally built to transport agricultural produce but now handles every form of cargo. Downtown Oxnard is a 1930s California farming town, mostly single story buildings built in the first third of the 20th Century with little new development along Oxnard Boulevard (part of California Highway 1) the city’s main drag, which has the modifier south where we are. The new development is where the boulevard intersects California Freeway 101—there the road is called North Oxnard Boulevard: large open air shopping centers with regional and national chain store residents. The city of Oxnard has a large Hispanic population, seen on the street and in the cars passing us on both sides of Oxnard Boulevard. The Best Western is probably not 1930s vintage, more likely built in the 1960s. It consists of two halves. The main part of the two-story motel forms an unequal “U” with the hotel’s porte-cochere and lobby at the longer leg of the “U” and a parking lot for the rooms within the inner section of the structure. Off to the right is the second half, an “L” shaped structure with our room on the second floor close to the end of the “L” near the road. There is a convention being held in the motel’s conference room on the ground floor of the L-shaped structure at the opposite end from us and the parking lot is crowded with cars of those attending.

It’s early afternoon on Saturday June 17th. We decide to rest a bit before driving over to the new development we’ve come to see. I’m craving chocolate and after making coffee in the in-room coffee maker, I go to the motel office and ask where the vending machines are. I’m directed to a gazebo-shaped building between the U and L shaped structures next to the motel’s swimming pool. I use my key to enter the building which is a workout and laundry room all in one. It’s hot and muggy inside and I find the vending machines near the washing machines and dryers which are running. I purchase a Heath bar for IM and a Snickers bar for me and I find my way back to the room. I use the room’s microwave to boil water to make IM tea and pour myself a cup of coffee, from the four-cup Mr. Coffee in-room coffee maker. Outside, the temperature is in the upper 70s or lower 80s Fahrenheit, and there is an on-shore flow driving “June Gloom” fog inland, but the Southern California sun, which keeps fighting somewhat unsuccessfully to dissipate the fog, has heated the air sufficiently that it feels muggy.

After finishing our candy bars and resting a bit, we decide to drive over to the development and tour the model homes. If you look at a Google satellite map of the coast off Oxnard, you’ll see the massive port facility, located at the southern end of a peninsula that guards the harbor and an inlet. The inlet channels salt water over a mile north to a yacht harbor, where east-west Channel Island Boulevard intersects West Channel Boulevard on the peninsula, after crossing Victoria Boulevard on the mainland. N the Google satellite image, the area a half mile south and west of the intersection of Victoria Boulevard and Wooley Road is farmland. The newly created town of Seabridge—established 2006—has converted that farmland into an extension of the existing yacht harbor. The developer has built a channel through the landmass in the shape of the number 6 formed using a square for the bottom and another square on top with the right side missing. At the bottom left of the 6 is the “Shops of Seabridge”—a community shopping center with an Albertsons, a drug store, and all the other shops you’d find in any suburban strip mall. On the inside of the bottom left of the 6 is a dock with four mooring ramps that resemble spokes in a wheel fanning out from the hub—across from the shopping center. Each mooring ramp can accommodate from 10 to 14 boats. Elsewhere all along the inside of the 6, boat mooring docks are ever present.

The center of the bottom half of the 6 contains all the new homes in the development, each with postage stamp size front yards, and comprising the Port Meridian, the lowest priced; the Port Provence, the mid-range; and Port Haviland, the high-end, each of which has a boat dock and a back yard, though not one kids could run around and get tired in. Over half of the Port Province homes—none with a back yard—have boat docks. These two housing tracks encircle the low-end Port Meridian homes which have no back yard and most even lack water views—those with views are considered premium lots. The houses range in size from around 2600 to 3750 square feet and IM and I walk through all nine models—three each for the different price ranges. Like so much of California, this development sprang out of nothing within the span of a few years—assuming the Google satellite image showing an open field where the development now stands is at least five years old. We return to the Best Western and try to digest all the information we’ve accumulated during our visit.

One glaringly obvious lesson is that this development is an insulated community set apart from the rest of Oxnard, with which it has little in common. The other is that new developments have become sterile outposts in a dirty world, Disneyland converted into housing developments. There’s a development in Northern California which created homes based on the paintings of Thomas Kincaid. The great problem with all these endeavors is that they are created on illusions of happiness that can never be realized in living there. Humans are not a disciplined lot. They do no behave in a uniform way, which is what such “theme” communities expect. To impart discipline on the community to force the conformity is the job of the homeowners’ association, a ruling body that enforces the rules established for the neighborhood---no cars parked in the street, no garage door left open for extended periods of time, no parking in designated areas, and the list goes on. Buying property in this community resembled joining a country club and the analogy holds. The country club is typically built around a golf course, which is the draw for joining. In this case, the draw was the harbor, which meant you had to have a boat. In the case of the country club you had to play golf. IM—despite the fact that she’s Scottish, the innovators of Golf, she has never played nor has any inclination to play the game of golf. In the case of the harbor housing development, neither one of us are sailors—despite the fact that I spent several years in the Navy, none of which were on sailboats, I have little inclination to sail or to learn how. Having a harbor view would be nice, but certainly not sufficient justification for the higher cost of the view.

We returned to the Best Western and after a brief rest decided to have dinner at a nearby iHop. The restaurant was nearly empty when we arrived at just after six o’clock in the evening. As we sat waiting for our dinner to arrive, we reflected on the days events. The experience had reminded us of our lifelong aversion for joining clubs and social communities. The one other rationale for purchasing a piece of property in the development was the expectation of financial gain from buying a home, holding it for several years, and selling it at its appreciated value. This alternative had appeal, but after considering the high cost of monthly expenses—homeowner association fees, property and Mello Roos taxes, and insurance—and the hassle and expense of selling the home afterwards, we decided against it.

We had planned two nights in Oxnard, but after we had come to a conclusion on the property, we decided to spend Sunday evening, Father’s Day, in Cambria. I call the Sand Pebble Inn on Moonstone Beach Drive and score an Ocean View room for the following night and I call the Best Western front desk and tell them we’ll be checking out the Sunday morning. We spend the evening watching “Memoirs of a Geisha” on my Dell laptop then called it a night.

The following morning we check out at around 10:00 and drive back to the iHop hoping to grab breakfast before hitting the road for Cambria. When we arrive at the restaurant, the sparse crowd of Saturday evening is replaced by a restaurant overflowing with diners and those waiting for tables—lots of families celebrating Father’s Day. We leave and head for the freeway on Oxnard Boulevard. As we near the freeway, we spy a Baker’s Square near the freeway entrance and pull in. We enter just ahead of an onslaught of others behind us and manage to get a table before a line forms out the door. When we travel, breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns, and white toast is a treat IM and I both look forward to. We finish our meal, leave our earnest, middle-age waitress a 25 percent tip and get onto Highway 101 heading north.