00:00:00—(Interview begins)—
REMAK: This is an oral history interview with Eric and Nina Maurer for the
special Mountain Drive project. It's taking place in their home at 238 East
Mountain Drive. It's Friday, January 9th, 1987. And this is Roberta Remak. Um,
the first thing I wanted to say was I liked your interview. And so the
questions, questions that I'm going to ask you are just, um, to flesh it out a
little bit. One of the things that was interested in was what it was like to a
be a woman in this particular community. Was it? Was it different from, uh, uh,
where you lived before or.
NINA: Well, I was brought up in New England and, uh, but the thing of it is that
when my husband and I came out here to stay, I had already been here before. I
had been here in 46
00:01:00before I was married, uh, when my brother and and his
wife came out to have she to have her first baby. And she was Bobby Hyde's
daughter. First daughter. And, um, so it was a lot different then I was an
available female. So when I came with my husband, um, I wouldn't say it was any
different from what I had experienced before. I mean, I knew what to expect. It
was a rather, uh, casual lifestyle and that, um. That's fine with me. It was.
Oh, I have an aunt who's going to be 102 at the end of February, and she, uh,
yes, she stays that long. Um, but I'm sure that a good deal of the
00:02:00manners, uh, which she is accustomed to, were missing, and I was a little bit
appalled that the children were not, uh, taught, um, you know, the children of
neighbors and that sort of thing were not taught good table manners. And and,
uh, they seem to eat, you know, sort of shovel it in, uh, I had been rather
properly brought up. I guess both of us have. Um. Uh. It didn't shock me. It
just. I just thought how? Too bad.
REMAK: Thank you. Um. Later on, when there was a sort of women's liberation
movement. Uh, the beginnings of. Did it work its way up here? Uh,
NINA: The women's movement? Yes. Good heavens. I've always been a liberated
woman. I couldn't tell you. And my husband has always
00:03:00said, well, you're good at this. And why? So why don't you do this? And, uh, he
took care of the kids and did the housework. If I had to go to a conference or
anything, I. It's. I've never felt, um. Unliberated. But that didn't come from
just living up here. It came with my husband.
REMAK: Um, tell me, what were your first impressions of Mountain Drive? When, uh.
ERIC: Oh, I loved it. Because of it. I feel I feel that I really bloomed here. I
was, uh, lived 30 years in New England, and, uh, we're quite used to the that
sort of life. Get out here and found that people were friendly and hospitable
and casual and, uh, uh, of course, the community that
Bobby put together, there were a lot of creative
people around, you know, people, a sense of humor, which they appreciated. So I
00:04:00really feel that I started out here.
REMAK: What did it look like when you first came? How many houses were there in this?
ERIC: Yeah, there were two. Okay, I know, I know that we.
NINA: Okay. There were, there were on this side of Mountain Drive. There were
only two. Well, one and a half. Uh, it was where Helen Connally now lives, which
is down at 210 or 212 or 214, something like that. And then the house just below
us was half 224 was just, um, three rooms with walls. And that was the only
those were the only two places that were here and.
ERIC: 224 really unique because Bobby had figured out a way to to cast blocks of
concrete, solid concrete. He had a hollow steel
00:05:00mold that was 12 inches high and 12 inches wide, and maybe 18 inches long. And
he would do a put that down and pour concrete, um, pretty, pretty stiff
concrete, and then wait for a minute and then lift it off and go on to the next
one on there. Just a be little space in between for plugging up, you know. And
so that whole house is built like that. And when the Edison company came to put
in the power, you know, they had a terrible time. They had all kinds of drills
and things. The Edison company called the place the Indian Village. Do you
remember that? Mhm. Because there were kids running around.
NINA: Oh way way back. That's got to be 25, 30 years ago. 30 years ago at least. Yeah.
ERIC: I thought that's it.
REMAK: Yes it is. Tell me, how old were you then?
NINA: Uh, we were in our, um. Uh. Well, let's see, we came in 49. I must have
been, uh. 15
00:06:00and 15 from 49 is what? I was born. We were both born in 15. He was born in
February of 15, I was born in December of 15, and we were early 30s. And I was,
um, pregnant with our first child. And we had flown here from, from Ecuador.
And, uh, I think I might have had it said that we were on our way around the
world and yes, I had I got pregnant, had to come home, you know, uh, that's
that's how we actually became.
REMAK: Did you consider living in any other place in Santa Barbara or?
NINA: No.
ERIC: This was. Well, what happened was, you see that, uh, as far as I can
remember, we made plans to be away for at least two years going around the
world, and we made the mistake of telling the New Haven papers about that, and
they published our picture in an article and all that sort
00:07:00of thing, you know. But when the trip broke up for psychological reasons down in
Ecuador, we, uh, kind of stuck. We didn't want to go back, you know, come
slinking back to New Haven. So, uh, we got ahold of Nina's brother, who was
living in Santa Barbara at the time, Bud Macy. And, uh, who had a ham radio
patch, you know, illegal but effective. And he said, why don't you come out here
and look around and see what you think? Mhm. We came out here and everything was
so nice. We just stayed, that's all.
REMAK: That's great. Um. What do you suppose Bobby Hyde bought all of this land,
or did he have some idea? Yeah. Some idea of a community or.
ERIC: Well, I don't know, but he was always of his land hungry. He was a land
buyer. And buying land land was a solid reality for him. And then once he had
it, of course, then what to do, you know, and, uh, so
00:08:00he, I think he was even in those days was in deadly fear of developers. He he
had a quarter quarter of section up in here. I don't know how many acres that
is, but, uh, he started, uh, finding people that he was interested in and
offering them a building site, you know, and, uh, so that's how we started out before.
NINA: Except that he gave us our acre. Everybody else had to pay.
ERIC: I didn't know that. I assumed Nina was handling all the financial stuff, such.
NINA: I still do.
ERIC: Well, it was then, and it is now. And I just assumed that we were making
payments on it, you know, but actually turned out to be a gift. It was marvelous.
NINA: That was our Bobby was just absolutely terrified that Eric would go back
East. He thought if we didn't have a place to live. And, you know, the wheels
were going around in his head and he thought, well, you know, if I helped him,
if I get an acre of land and show them how to build a house, then they are
00:09:00really stuck and Eric will have to stay.
ERIC: That's a very nice way to look at it.
NINA: Knowing it's an absolute truth.
ERIC: I tell you, I nearly blew it with him when we were first introduced, but
Macy introduced me to his father in law and I called him sir because he was an
elderly man, and I was nervous when he told me. Later on, after we got to know
each other, he said, "Well, that was nearly the end. You don't know how close I
came to throwing you out on your ear."
NINA: Well, it was quite different because the thing of it was that he was the
although my sister in law is a good deal younger than we are, nine years. Um, he
was her father, so that we were contemporaries and he was the next generation,
although he wasn't all that much older than me. Mhm. And, um,
00:10:00so we, I had a tendency to look on him as a, as a father figure. Um, I found out
he didn't want to be looked at as a father figure.
ERIC: He didn't mind being a father, though.
NINA: No, he didn't. He had quite a few children.
REMAK: Well, did he did he take a sort of a a parental role with regard?
ERIC: No, he had the. No. I saw right away. We had had a contact, uh, you know,
we learned about a guy named Irving Johnson. I don't know if you ever heard
about him or not, but he owns or those back in those days owned a big, uh,
sailing vessel. And he would take a group of young people around the world, and
he would definitely a father figure and Captain Bligh and everything else, you
know, and I had I wanted to go around the world, but never under those
conditions. That was just terrible, you know? And Bobby was completely opposite.
He's, for for instance, when it came to building this house, I said, My God, I
never built a house. He said, "There's nothing to it." And
00:11:00he went around. He put up batter boards. You know what they are? There are two
big boards that are right angle on a post, and they outline the the house, the
shape of the house, you know, and you stretch a string between them and then you
start building. So he said, "There's nothing to it," this this building. So I
told him that, uh, you know, I the only thing I ever made my life, as far as I
can remember, was in grade school, in manual training. And they had us make a
breadboard and alternate strips of white and black woods, you know, that sort of
thing. Once a week we went over to the adjoining school where they had a
workshop. And, uh, after long weeks I finally got this thing together and took
it home. And of course, my mother was delighted and she put it on the table and
put a loaf of bread on it, took a whack with a knife and the whole thing
disintegrated, and so did I. And so did she. I mean, you know. So I told Bobby
he said, well, that's all right, you know, of course we got all through and I
could see
00:12:00the mistakes that I'd made. He was very philosophical. He said, "You have to
build a couple of them before you really find out what you want?"
NINA: Oh, he never did. He was never interested in finishing houses. He was
interested in in planning them and putting the rough stuff up, you know, and
when I, when I first came in 46, they were living on down where they lived for
many years. Um, until he died. They both died. Um, and, um, it was never really
finished. No. Um, never. And all those. All those times. Oh, yeah. And, uh.
ERIC: Thomas stuff. You know, he knew all kinds of artistic people, and they
they knew him, and they'd visit him, you know, and sit around and drink wine
with. Great. Great.
NINA: But it was it was a strange house. And I don't know why his
00:13:00wife ever put up with all the. Well, of course she adored him. But the thing was
that. And because he made things exciting, um, but, uh, you know, when I first
walked in, uh, they were still Bobby decided to raise chickens They had at one
time, 2,000. Thank goodness they'd gotten rid of most of them and all but about
two dozen, I think. But chickens wandering in and out of the house, uh, were
not. I don't think they noticed the odor, um, at all. And there was Joel's
harp. Joel's harp was standing in one corner very
grandly. And then on the table, they were trying. There was an incubator where
they were trying to raise pheasants. And, um, the fireplace was large, but Bobby
didn't like to chop wood, so he would end-log, you know,
00:14:00he'd make a little fire, and then he'd put a log and then, you know, when that
burned. He'd keep shoving it in and shoving it in and shoving it in.
ERIC: I remember going down. There was a very chilly night, though it did get
quite chilly. And, uh, he was end-logging like mad. But the end of the log stuck
out to the door so the door was open.
REMAK: Defeats the purpose. I wanted to ask you about, uh, the Sunset Club.
ERIC: Oh, you have to ask Jack Boegle about that.
Okay. He is the man, you know. He is. Really? You were saying just the other day.
NINA: I was saying that he is one person that you really should know. I hope he
will agree to it. He has Parkinson's, and, um, it shouldn't be on the tape.
Probably. But anyway, um, in our dotage, we're beginning to forget what what it
was like.
ERIC: I remember very well. But you won't let me tell it.
NINA: No I won't.
REMAK: Was there. Was there any general? Was there
00:15:00a philosophy about about the way you lived up here, I mean. Was there...
ERIC: Only in a general sense now, for instance, everyone here was, you know,
that Bobby was connected with or got their land through Bobby or build his own
place. And at that time most of the guys were working in their houses. The women
worked downtown. Nina was a nurse. Other people did various other clerical jobs
or whatever, you know. And, uh, you always you always stood by, for instance, if
you saw groaning up the hill one of those concrete trucks, you know, you'd drop
whatever you're doing, take a shovel and follow it because they could help
somebody. And that's when you need the help and you're pouring a slab And, uh,
that kind of thing. There's no, um, you know, there's no quid pro quo or
anything like that. It's just the way it works. Very friendly, very nice.
NINA: Well, in the other hand, it was a live and let live community. You didn't
pry into other. You were there to help,
00:16:00but you never, uh, would would, uh, um, pry into other people's affairs.
REMAK: It was a sort of casual drop in kind of community, wasn't it?
NINA: Yes. For for a time, for maybe six months when, um, my daughter was little
and I was not working. Um, we used to serve tea every afternoon, and, um, I
sometimes two people would show up and sometimes ten would show up.
ERIC: My hair is white now. I drank so much tea.
NINA: Well, it was kind of fun. And then of course, I went back to work when she
was old enough and that sort of stopped. But when we first moved here, it was
every afternoon, almost every afternoon at the Hydes, and everybody that was was
around. And then Bobby would invite, uh, people in and
00:17:00that didn't live here. So we got to know, uh,
REMAK: When you say afternoon, you mean the end of the day after...
NINA: End of the day, 5:00, 5:00, 5:30.
ERIC: You know when we when we first started out, this this, uh, part of the
house didn't exist at all. The living room, this was from there on back, and our
bedroom was also our living room. But before there was even a division of rooms
or even a slab that we built the stonework and the woodwork and put a roof on
it. And we used to have a couple of parties there. I remember that we people
were sitting on the ground, you know, leaning up against the stone. And, uh, the
only thing that had a foundation at all was a pot, and that was on its own
thing. And it had a curtain around it, you know, and that had the plumbing in it
all, that sort of thing. But, um, that's the kind of thing, you know, people
weren't afraid to come in and sit down and talk, I suppose. Relax.
REMAK: Did people bring stuff to eat and...
ERIC: Oh, yeah, they do that. They bring a little something. You know, it wasn't
a formal
00:18:00potluck thing or anything. If they happened to have something to spare, which is
not often, they'd bring it along.
REMAK: But most of the people who lived up here in pretty, uh, straitened
financial circumstances.
ERIC: Pretty much so, I think, weren't they?
NINA: Well, they. Were, yes. Quite a few of them were trying to get established
as whatever they wanted to be, and they were doing odd jobs in the meantime.
ERIC: Oh, yeah. Um, that, um.
NINA: Oh. For instance, Frank Robinson, uh, who is now
a designer and but he did carpentry work to keep them going.
ERIC: I remember when, uh. Frank threw a big party to celebrate the fact that he
had to pay income tax. It was just it was a remarkable thing. And he was so glad
that at that point.
NINA: They, They, uh, and they, uh, they still do. I think, um, they
00:19:00had parties at the drop of a hat, uh, to celebrate Beethoven's birthday or, um,
Twelfth Night or. Yes, the Bastille Day and, um, almost everything.
REMAK: Describe one of these, uh, say, say, uh, Bobby Burns birthday.
ERIC: Uh, how's that you would get from Jack. That was Sunset Club stuff, huh?
He he and, uh, Jack and Frank Robinson were the two.
NINA: Bill Neely, Bill Neely, Darling.
ERIC: Well, Bill Neely, but he is beyond interviewing.
NINA: Well, that's true, but but as far as instigators were concerned, um, he
was and they they did the whole thing.
ERIC: They had, for instance they had a Frank came up with a carbide cannon. I
don't know if you remember the kid. They had no, um, company put them out. They
looked like a cannon. Well, they you remember, don't remember, but you've heard
about carbide lamps, you know? Yeah, yeah.
00:20:00He put water on this carbide, and it generates a gas, and you can light it. You
know well that you got a tremendous piece of pipe and, uh, fixed it up so that
he could pour the water in and touch it off. And it made a roar like a dynamite,
you know. And of course, he gave that ranger a heart attack, but completely
harmless. There's no flame or anything, you know, just tremendous bang. That was
part of the Bastille Day.
NINA: They used to. Yeah.
REMAK: Was there a storming there? Uh oh.
ERIC: Yes, it came up. They came up to the back from Mountain Drive and I wasn't
there, but I heard all about it.
NINA: For Bobby Burns birthday, they always had, um, uh, people came dressed in
costume and they had the. What is it, the haggis? Yes. And some people knew
people who played bagpipes, and they were invited.
ERIC: Bobby was with a bagpipe band, by the way. I don't know if he played
himself, did he?
NINA: Well, I think he had some, as I remember, those
00:21:00were some over in the corner that he tried to fix.
ERIC: Talk about live and let live. You know, when you start playing one of
those things.
REMAK: You do have to have tolerant neighbors, don't you?
NINA: Yes, indeed.
REMAK: Well, suppose you were busy working. How did you tell people you didn't
want visitors?
ERIC: I'm sorry. I didn't hear that.
REMAK: Oh, when you were busy working. If you didn't want visitors, how did you
tell people?
ERIC: Oh, well, they could tell. I mean, you know, if they came around, if they
could help, they'd help. If they if you if they saw you didn't want it, you
know, if they didn't want it, it was very irritating sometimes to be doing
something that you want to do and that somebody pitches in and they're reaching
over your shoulder and doing things that you wouldn't have done, or that they
sensed that I never had any problem with that.
NINA: You know, we never did. And, you know, that kind of of thing only lasted
for about ten years after we first came. And then there were so many people,
00:22:00uh, who came, who already had full time jobs and that sort of thing. We, uh, it
just if well, if everybody I think about probably the Wine Stomp was the only
thing that gathered everybody together. Um, not me.
REMAK: Describe the Wine Stomp.
ERIC: Well, I'll come to that, but I'm just thinking in relation to what you're
talking about, uh, to continue with this house. Uh, after a while, we got the
stonework done and the fireplace and the stools. This dirt, you know, the pile
of stones in the middle of it we were using. And the fireplace, by the way, um,
I built the thing that nobody ever told me that the stones don't have to fit
three dimensionally. You see, we called up Ozzie Da Ros, a stonemason, and asked
him how much to put a fireplace around that heal layer, you know, that's a metal
furnace in there. And
00:23:00he said something like $300.
NINA: No, it was $450.
ERIC: $450.
NINA: I'm the banker.
ERIC: We didn't have 450 cents, you know. So. All right, well, I'll build it. It
took me all summer long, and poor Neal was going crazy because nothing else was
being done. Because that chipping and fitting these stones.
NINA: It took three months. It would have taken Italian stonemasons three days.
ERIC: Yeah, but it wouldn't be like that, you know.
NINA: No.
REMAK: Well that's true.
ERIC: This is a native stone from the hills around here. And if you look at it,
you can see the casts, you know, fossil cast shells and that sort of thing. You
know, it was all sea bottom at one time. Well, anyway, get back to the, um, uh,
we had the fireplace and everything else, and I think even the, um, um, was
there any woodwork at all? I think maybe the doorposts and that sort of thing.
The door and the windows we made out of car stakes. Those were stakes that, um,
uh, big rough, uh, 6 by 6 or 8 by 8 stakes, 8 or 10 feet long that they jammed
into the side of flat
00:24:00cars to keep the lumber on the board, you know, and you could pick them up for
$0.25 apiece or whatever it was. And we use those for a lot of the framing. And
about that time I was coming home from an orchestra job, I dumped the car in a
canyon, and I wound up in the hospital. And at that time, I remember I was lying
there feeling very uncomfortable. But Frank came, you know, Frank Robinson, good
neighbor, good buddy, came in. And, uh, after I'd gone, uh, after after he had
gone. You know, I came home and found that a lot of the neighbors. It must have
been 4 or 5 of them, at least. Mhm. And were building the living room and all
the time Frank was there, he was pumping me. What did you have in mind. You know
sort of thing. And very gently finding out. Then he just went ahead and built
it. That's great.
REMAK: That was great. Yeah. That's very nice. Okay, well,
00:25:00let me then take you back to the Wine Stomp. Did you ever go out to pick grapes?
ERIC: I never went. You went. Yeah.
REMAK: You did?
NINA: Yeah. The very first time.
REMAK: What was the name of that place?
NINA: I have no idea. It was a ranch up near Camino Cielo. Up near the Pass. Um,
I have no. I have often thought maybe it was part of the Kinevan Ranch, I don't
know. It was somebody's Bobby had known, and it had been, uh, a vineyard, but it
had been allowed to be overgrown. And I think that is why the people allowed us
to pick the grapes. And it was a warm October day and I went dressed in shorts
and I guess a t-shirt or whatever, and, uh, not realizing that what grows up
around the vineyard when it's allowed to go to pot, are brambles.
00:26:00Mhm, mhm. And I came home and my legs were just a bloody mess from stomping. You
must have had a job at the time with the Zahl brothers or something, that you
couldn't go. So the very next day, uh, Bobby used his redwood tank, which had
been a sort of a small swimming pool.
ERIC: It was a stock watering tank, perhaps, uh oh, two and a half or three feet
deep and about 12 feet across, you know, and, uh, held a lot.
NINA: And they threw all the grapes in there, um, with. Yeah, there were a lot
of grapes. The thing of it was that, uh, when they weren't just the grapes, they
were the grapes and stems. So that when I got in with my sore legs, they, and
the juice began to flow. It was like putting alcohol
00:27:00on an open cut. It was very uncomfortable for me. Uh, not necessarily for
everybody else, but it was it was, uh, you know, we all gathered and, um,
people, if they had, um, instruments, came and played them, no matter how badly.
ERIC: We welcomed the new vintage with the old.
NINA: Well, not the first time. Um, after that they it got more and more
elaborate and more people from off the mountain were invited. And it that's when
I lost interest completely.
REMAK: Were you here when...?
ERIC: I remember, though? The one where Hugo and, uh. Nina.
NINA: That was the first one, Darling.
ERIC: That's the first one. Yes. Well, the thing is that, uh, Bill Neely, who's
gone now, but he was a vintner of some kind. He knew something about. He used to
have wine tasting and that sort
00:28:00of thing, you know, down at Bobby's and and, uh, so Bill was more or less in
charge of, of the traditional way to do all this stuff. And before anybody
jumped in, he pointed out that the the ancient tradition that the first person
to set set foot in the thing has to be a virgin. So anyway, uh, there was an
emergency meeting. The committee we met down at Bill's wine cellar and sat
around. I remember there was an upended barrel with a candle on it, and we were
all sitting up, scratching our head. And finally we had visiting nobility. But
it wasn't a well. Hugo was a Danish prince, as you know. Yeah. And, uh, he had
his fiancé there. So she was the pre-elected virgin. And, uh, I remember she was
a gorgeous blond, you know, a beautiful thing. And she climbed up on a set of
stairs, you know, and looked
00:29:00down at this mound of grapes, you know, and started putting her foot down. And I
swear she looked anxiously at the sky for a moment. But anyway, she went on,
and. She christened the whole thing and uh, boy, that was some Stomp. You know,
everybody got in there and start jouncing around.
NINA: This is a lovely story, but I have to...
REMAK: How many people could you get in a in...?
NINA: Oh, about ten.
ERIC: A dozen, you know. Yeah.
NINA: But he's, he's mixed two Wine Stomps up as I told you he might. Well
that's all right. It's a good story.
NINA: Yeah, it's a lovely story. Uh...
REMAK: When did they start making a parade? Before. And...
NINA: We weren't in on it then. It was so after, uh, the first 2 or 3 Wine
Stomps. Um, and that was well, Bill Neely had built a wine cellar at that point,
and he and, um, so...
00:30:00REMAK: Was he was he, uh, marketing his wine locally or...
NINA: No.
REMAK: Not enough.
NINA: No.
ERIC: I remember, we, uh, remember the time we fooled him. We brought back from
the East. A friend of ours was living in New York and made dandelion wine, you
know, and he brought that out. And that was the mystery wine, at the wine
tasting and the people...
NINA: Well. You got to go and tell them about the W.C. and T.U.
ERIC: Well, anyway, the thing is that I was coming to what Bill. Bill said, you
know, no one could guess it. With any conviction at all. And finally, most he
could say was, "It's never seen the vine." I thought he was saying that was a
pretty good guess.
REMAK: Pretty good, pretty good guess.
ERIC: What was this? Oh, the W.C. and T.U. Yes.
REMAK: I wanted to see if I could some, uh, portraits, as it were, of a few
people, that we thought would be particularly interesting. Someone I
00:31:00am not going to be able to interview, of course, is William Neely. Bill Neely.
ERIC: Yeah. Bill.
REMAK: Yeah. And I'd like to know what what he was like and what he did and...
ERIC: Well, I'd tell you that he was a he was a potter and he for quite a while
instructed in the City College, you know, pottery and so forth did some great
stuff. And, uh, he was a vintner, and that was about the only two things. And I
heard, of course, he, you know, it's hard for a man to be chauvinistic to
another man, you know. But I have heard that he was really pretty rough on his
wife, you know.
REMAK: Mhm. What about. What about the pottery wars. Oh that get started. Yeah.
The pottery wars?
NINA: Pot Wars?
REMAK: Pot Wars.
ERIC: Yes. Oh, yes. The Pot War.
NINA: Well, we had several Ed Schertz was also a
pottery. Still is. Um, and there were several other people in the. And so what
they did around Christmas, before Christmas.
ERIC: Gerry Friedman.
NINA: Yeah, but
00:32:00he wasn't a part of it. Um, the Pot Wars. But any rate, uh, they used to bring
all their stuff out and, uh, line the Mountain Drive, and people would come, you
know, from all over the county. And it got to be so bad that they had to quit
because the emergency vehicles could not get by.
ERIC: People got mad.
NINA: And, uh, so they had to stop that.
REMAK: But when they first started, they were, they were uh...
NINA: Oh, they weren't competitive at all. They just were trying to sell their
stuff and they'd make a big deal about being competitive, but they weren't
really. Yeah, yeah. Um, Bill's wife was a lovely person, and she, um, you know,
REMAK: What was her name?
NINA: Barbara and, uh, she complained of stomach pains for almost a year. And
she kept
00:33:00having tests and they said nothing was wrong and so forth and so on. So finally
it got so bad that they opened her up and she was full of cancer. Mhm. And the
surgeon who did it was almost cried when he told me about it, because Barbara
was a lovely person and she had been complaining and maybe if they had taken her
more seriously in the beginning. But it really is intestinal cancer. Very
difficult to diagnose in its early stages. And um, and then one of his boys was
in a terrible accident and has been paralyzed from the neck down, practically.
Um, and, uh. Oh, it's it's they they're Lower Mountain Drivers. You find...
REMAK: There's a difference upper and lower then.
NINA: Yeah, it's quite different. It just developed that way.
REMAK: Now, I understand Chris Neely is still living
00:34:00 here.
NINA: Yeah.
REMAK: Which house does he live in his?
NINA: The old house and the old house I think. Mhm. Mhm. But I don't know the
person that might know is um Colleena, the gal was down 224, now. I don't know
what last name she goes by. She's been married 3 or 4 times.
ERIC: Oh right down here, you mean.
NINA: Yeah.
REMAK: Yeah. What about Jack Boegle? He's your neighbor.
NINA: Yeah. He's the one we said, he's the one that we said you should really go
and interview because he he was, uh, Sunset Club, the last I knew met there. Um,
and, uh, he wrote the Mountain Drive Grapevine.
ERIC: His house is just down this little road here.
NINA: And and he has no phone, so you have to walk down there and knock on the
door and ask.
ERIC: Better to walk.
NINA: Yeah, and better to walk.
00:35:00Don't drive.
REMAK: What? Who were the well-known people you mentioned? A few who used to
visit here. Like, uh, Stokowski.
NINA: Well, that was before our time. Yes, much before that was when Bobby was
living in a cave up on, um, uh, Arbolado Road, up on the Riviera.
ERIC: Um, that was when he had the alcoholic maid, wasn't it? She'd been bounced
out of I don't know how many houses in Montecito for drinking and each place she
kept her uniform so that she, her idea of fun is to more than serving Leopold
and Bobby sitting around with serving wine. And each time she came in she'd have
a different uniform. Yeah, in In this cave.
REMAK: That's incredible.
ERIC: Wonderful thing.
REMAK: Uh, can you can you think of any other, uh.
NINA: Oh. Well, Raquel Welch came along. You see, the thing of it is, as I said
on my tape, that,
00:36:00uh, it wasn't that Bobby knew all these people, but Bobby knew people who knew
people. And Bobby stayed here. Bobby didn't wander. Yeah, except he finally did
wander up to Canada and bought some land up there. But, um, people would say
they would say, Go to Chicago and they'd meet somebody and say, "Well, I'm going
to Santa Barbara next week." "Oh, if you go to Santa Barbara, you've got to meet
Bobby Hyde." Yes. So they would all come to meet Bobby Hyde. And that's how he
got to know so many people.
ERIC: Well, he was really great with his with his land. I don't know if you call
him manipulations or not, but he was fascinated by land, and he, he he saw a
bargain. He'd buy it, you know, and then think about what to do. But then when
he started parceling out in here, I don't know what the exact number is, either
4 or 5. You can do that. Any more than that, you're going to have to take out a
developer license or a real estate license and all that stuff. He didn't want
that. So
00:37:00what he'd do is sell all his belongings, all the land, to someone for a dollar.
We owned it for a while we owned Painted Cave.
NINA: A dollar down. It was just on paper. Just on paper.
ERIC: Well.
NINA: There was no dollar...
ERIC: ...was consideration...
NINA: No. No dollar.
ERIC: Well. Okay. Anyway, for a while there, we owned Painted Cave.
REMAK: You did?
ERIC: Yeah. And I didn't know it. I mean, you know, and all of a sudden, we got
a tax bill. You know, it looked like the national debt. And I roared down to
Bobby, and he wrote he looked at the thing and laughed and said, "Oh, yes." He
just took it, you know. But then when it came to time for us to sell or do
something, you know, something to do it. I got a notice from title insurance.
"You come down here and sign some documents," you know, and I was in a hurry,
and I double parked where they where they were. I think it was Santa Barbara
Street. I think something like that. And or Anacapa and I just double parked,
rushed in "Where are the papers," you know, and they said, well, now, you know,
he said, "Oh, you'll
00:38:00want to look these over." Signed it, jumped up, got in the car and drove away.
And there.
REMAK: Were you here when the movie was made?
NINA: Well, they made a, uh. Actually, they made a movie of the, um...
ERIC: Oh, the Wine Stomp?
NINA: The Wine Stomp.
ERIC: Oh, yes. That's another thing. Bill Neely kind of sold us out. You know,
he went commercial and he saw, had an offer from somebody I don't know what it
was, but he he sold the rights and they came up and made a picture of the Wine
Stomp. But we'd stopped long before that. He was no longer around.
NINA: It, wasn't it? It included neighbors, Jack. Right now. Um, it included a
lot of people off mountain. Um, and that was the problem with a lot of things
that started that started out to be good. Um, um, that people had friends in
other parts of Santa Barbara and they'd
00:39:00say, "Oh, well, we're going to celebrate Bobby Burns birthday. Why don't you
come on and bring a jug and come on up and join us?" And all of a sudden you
find yourself surrounded by people you didn't know.
ERIC: And not necessarily, uh, simpatico. You showed up. A party. But, uh, what
was that? Uh, what was I going to say about that?
NINA: And there is a whole Banana Road, um, contingent, you know, down below.
Yeah. Wow.
ERIC: Um, yeah, those people are scattered now. You know, John...
NINA: The original.
REMAK: Yeah.
NINA: They're all to the...
ERIC: What's it? Gardi.
NINA: Well, they're divorced.
ERIC: Well, I know that, but I mean, in those days, they weren't. And they were
living on Banana Road. I helped dig their cesspool, and they gave me a 32 panel
truck, a wonderful 32 Ford truck.
REMAK: Tell me, how do you think it's made
00:40:00any any difference in your lives having.
ERIC: I can't imagine any other way. You know it. Uh.
NINA: I have no idea.
ERIC: But. Nina. Nina is the one who had a life, so to speak. She had a
profession, and she was able to work at it. And she was always in demand and
that sort of thing. And I was just an English major with no idea of what I
really wanted to do. Of course, I look back on it now, I'd like to think that I
wish I had become a musician, you know, just really been a musician and not sort
of fooling around.
NINA: If you wanted to be a musician and you wanted to live in Santa Barbara,
too. And the two things are not compatible.
ERIC: Well, not terribly.
REMAK: What was the what was the best time for Mountain Drive?
NINA: Oh, early the 50s.
REMAK: The 50s?
NINA: I would say, when young people were coming in building their own houses
And, um, everybody knew everybody and everybody
00:41:00knew Bobby and Floppy and uh, uh, was, um, not more
than about ten couples, and now it's, what, 40?
ERIC: Did you did anyone tell you about his swimming pool made out of wine bottles?
REMAK: Uh, yeah. Becky did. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Where were you? Here when he built it.
NINA: Oh, sure.
ERIC: Well, I swam in it. I can't remember his building it.
NINA: I can.
ERIC: You can? mhm.
NINA: It was not there when I came out in 46, I can tell you.
REMAK: Well the whole thing wasn't, wasn't wine bottles just one end, wasn't it?
NINA: It was. Well it was shaped like a half moon.
ERIC: Yeah. And the whole half moon was down there. Oh, the hillside is just
concrete, you know? But, uh, it just you could sit on the top and look down, you
know? Then the hill went down so the light would shine through the bottles, you
see, and then.
NINA: You know,
00:42:00that was one of Bobby's things.
REMAK: Was it ever heated?
NINA: No. Good heavens, no. And there was no way to clean them either. You had
to drain it. And and he he he stuck a lot of avocado trees down below it that
he'd grown from seeds that he'd gotten from avocados from the market. Oh, and he
put them in. Yeah, he'd put them in a five gallon can of, of, um, pure leaf
mold. Of course they grew, but.
ERIC: Yeah. Um, he was great for, for harvesting natural stuff. You know, it
wasn't so much personal. It was just interest in being able to live off the land.
NINA: He learned all about mushrooms and learned to gather mushrooms.
ERIC: He took me up, um, uh, Cold Spring Trail. We went half a mile or so. And
over on the left. This is on this side of the of the creek. On the left, there's
a there's a slope with some big oak trees on it and just deep of leaf mold, you
know. And
00:43:00he said, "There they are." And I said, "Where are they?" And they were
undulations in this leaf mold. Just pull it aside here, this beautiful golden
chanterelle, you know. Oh, oh, wonderful stuff. Remember that the party we had
one time when it was almost all native food, you know, the olive oil was so
fine. He'd take of a gang down and there were olive trees downtown. And when
they'd fallen in the pavement, you know, and just sweep them up off the pavement
and take them home and make olive oil. And, uh, somebody had presented him with
a haunch of venison. Do you remember that? Did Gabby go out and get that?
NINA: Swamp veal.
ERIC: Well, swamp veal.
NINA: It was strictly illegal.
ERIC: But I remember that.
NINA: Somebody had the deer had been in someone's garden and they felt that they.
ERIC: Wound up inside us. Yes, it was.
NINA: Very good.
ERIC: Down there. I remember the scene because Gabby, uh, Gabby, the young guy
you know about
00:44:00built strong, you know, athletic, that sort of thing. And he took it upon
himself to be a waiter, and he was stripped to the waist, and he'd carry on
these big great plates and stuff, and I put him down and had torches, you know,
and the whole thing was just great. Wine. Oh, wow.
REMAK: But was that a philosophy though, living off the land? Uh, well, just
just just kind. Of a challenge to see what you could do.
ERIC: I think the occasion was the deer.
NINA: Oh, yeah.
ERIC: And they have a deer outside of a parking lot.
NINA: They had. They roasted a pig once, remember? They turned it on a spit
forever and ever and ever. And, uh, I don't think it turned out very well. But,
uh, it was. He did. Oh, well, I think on my tape, I told him about his getting
involved with Adelle Davis.
REMAK: Yes.
NINA: When her book came out.
ERIC: Oh, God. Yeah, that was terrible. And I'm. I volunteered to be the
control. I said, you guys go ahead and live
00:45:00on blackstrap molasses and walnuts or whatever it was, you know, and I'll eat
what I've always eaten, and we'll see. We'll just see when you guys start
growing an extra arm, you know, or something like that, or big bumps on your
head. So.
NINA: They were no more healthy than me. Uh. I can tell from here.
ERIC: But he would keep me going, you know, when between other jobs, that
boulder up or something like that, you know, he'd find ways to hire me. He
bought a horizontal drilling rig, and he was putting water wells in or anywhere
he could find. And I helped with that. And in fact, we.
NINA: You were doing that when Soleil was born.
ERIC: Was it Soleil or Rick? No, Rick, because I was. Well, listen, Floppy came
down here. I was working down in this canyon where Joel's house, you know, is or
was or something like that. And,
00:46:00uh, uh, Bobby was away, and I was working away, and Floppy came down and
considerable distress and said, you've got to get to the hospital right away.
And Rick had had his procedure. That's when that happened.
NINA: Well, you were working on a job as well when you'd taken me in.
ERIC: I remember getting down to Cottage Hospital and Moon Mullins used to drive
around on two wheels. You may remember the Moon Mullins is a cartoon strip.
REMAK: Yeah.
ERIC: But I was doing one wheel. Model A Roadster. Oh, yeah.
REMAK: Any questions you wish I'd asked you?
NINA: No. Oh. There are, uh. The mountain is full of stories and various people
that I met. Nobody has mentioned to you that that at one time the Millers lived
up where Helen Connelly lives now. Alistair and
00:47:00Valentine Miller and their four kids. And the charming couple. A little crazy,
but, uh, absolutely charming. Um, yeah, I helped a little bit for you to be a
little odd, a little crazy to live up here, and, uh. And, uh, I think after
Bobby got involved. You have read his book, haven't you? Six More At
Sixty. Well, I think after you, they adopted the
children. They were so concerned with all of them that they. Well, it took all
their time.
ERIC: It also slowed them down. You know, they didn't want to, you know, expose
their kids to all of the revelry and that sort of thing. It really they were
very busy and they'd take them camping and that sort of thing, you know. I
00:48:00remember one of them told me, Cecilio, a fine musician, and, uh, he was
reminiscing one time. He said, "You know, daddy used to take us out to these
state parks and we'd we'd find a the ranger would assign us a plaque, you know,
a place. And before we even went in there, we'd had to go in and pick up
everything and read matchsticks, anything, you know. And, uh. "But, daddy, we
didn't put these here." "Never mind. Pick them up." And they left the same way,
you see. He instilled that kind of thing. That's no bad thing.
REMAK: That's a good thing. Yeah.
ERIC: But he's interested in, uh, in, uh, what do they call it? Not jewelry,
but, uh, working with stones.
NINA: And they used to go over and get jade.
ERIC: ...On the coast here.
NINA: No, over in Bakersfield, Darling, over near Bakersfield is where they got
the jade.
ERIC: Yeah. Mhm. And,
00:49:00uh, he had a tumbler, you know, he tumbled rocks and so forth.
REMAK: Very interesting.
ERIC: I tell you. My God, we spoke so much at, uh, over at the Gottstankers
about this and that. And I can't remember what I told you about the last time I
saw him. Uh, he, I was, uh, walking up State Street right near the Art Museum,
and, uh, he came along in a jeep heading same way and pulled into the right hand
turn lane. And that's when I saw him. He came up after me, so I stepped over as
the red light, and I stepped over and said hello. And, uh, he had an enormous
book, the really tremendous thing. And it was all about butterflies. And he
said, "You've got to read this book." And meanwhile, people wanted to turn right
on the red light right behind him. They were beeping and so forth. And they
finally got quite clamorous. And I got embarrassed and. And, uh, he flung the
book of the effort, you know, and said, don't
00:50:00you be sure to read this book. And it was by someone named Grant. And I said,
any relation to Campbell? He said, "No, no." I said, "Well, anyway, you can call
it Grant's Tome." And he went around the corner laughing. It's the last time I
ever seen him. He went to the hospital shortly after that. And he didn't last
long, did he?
NINA: No. Not really.
ERIC: Yeah. What was his problem then?
NINA: Stroke.
ERIC: Stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Yeah. But when we first knew him, when I first saw
him, he was quite roly poly. And the reason was that he'd had an ulcer, and he
just he'd be driving a bulldozer and he had a quart of milk, and he kept
slugging milk all the time. And he had a stomach resection. I guess they called
it something like...
NINA: ...gastric resection, he had.
REMAK: Yeah.
ERIC: And after that he was really quite thin, you know, but he always wore, he had.
NINA: Fatigues.
ERIC: Several suits of this, uh, well camouflaged fatigues, boiler suit, you
know, and that's typically you see him walking around with a straw hat. Now,
that was Bobby.
NINA: When he had his operation.
00:51:00His his ulcer operation. Yeah. Eric went to see him, but the word got back.
Please don't let Eric come and see me again. He makes me laugh and it hurts too much.
REMAK: That's nice. Oh, well, thank you very much.
NINA: You're very welcome.
00:52:00
