George Greyson Interview

--(Interview begins)--

BRUSS: George, you arrived on Mountain Drive on August of 1960. Could you describe your first impressions of what the Mountain Drive area was like?

GREYSON: When I came here in 1960, which was August of 1960, I had just arrived in California from Canada and it took us about three weeks; myself, my wife and three children in a 1948 Chevrolet, arrived at the Carpinteria State Park in Carpinteria heading towards San Francisco. I'm a chef and I understood that there was going to be plenty of work in San Francisco with the restaurants, first class restaurants, and hotels up there. While I was in the campsite in 00:01:00Carpinteria, an Italian couple from Los Angeles was in the next tent site and we got talking in the evening. He was saying, "But if you have any place to go, George, you can go to Santa Barbara. They're right next door in one of the most beautiful places. Everybody would like to go and retire there. They have some nice restaurants and hotels. Why don't you give them a try first before you go to San Francisco?" So, I thought it was a good idea. I didn't know anything about Santa Barbara. So, we arrived in Santa Barbara and I managed to get a job the next day at a hotel; a big hotel in Santa Barbara, the Miramar Hotel. For three days, I was working from the campsite in Carpinteria, opened up a little trailer that we brought with us, six by four trailer, that contained all our personal belongings. So, I started looking around for a house near the place where I was working; the Miramar Hotel. I went across the street very naively 00:02:00and I saw this large house that had a "For Sale" sign on it and I asked the lady how much she would charge me rent for it until they could sell it. She said it would be $200 a month and I thought that was too much. I asked her if she knew of a place where it would be more reasonable. A person was fixing her washing machine in the house; his name was Gene Sturman. She said, "Well, just a moment, I'll fetch Gene and he might know someplace where you can find a reasonable rented house." Gene came out and told me that someone was moving off Mountain Drive that particular day. The landlord was already at the house, so, if I went up there right away, I could probably rent that particular house. That house happened to be at 330 East Mountain Drive and it belonged to Joel Andrews, who was the son of Bobby Hyde.[1] He had built this house 00:03:00himself; very tall, woody, redwoody house. One day, he told me he was going to use it as a studio. He was a sculptor teaching at UCLA.[2] So, we gave him the $100 and we moved into the house. Well, here we were, working at the hotel, family was getting settled in and it was quite a few weeks, I guess, two or three weeks before we started looking around and talking to the neighbors. I guess it was probably about a month. Finally, we got to know our neighbors; more about our neighbors. Next door was Frank Robinson. We got talking with Frank. We were walking along Mountain Drive one evening after leaving a house of a friend of ours on Mountain 00:04:00Drive and he was saying that every family on Mountain Drive usually threw a party at least once a year. They celebrated the Fourth of July, the Fourteenth of July, which is the Bastille night, Twelfth Night, Christmas, New Year: so many parties throughout the year. So, I said I have one party effort that would probably be suitable. I said I'm from Scotland originally. Is there anybody on Mountain Drive that has a party for Robert Burns, the Scottish poet? He said "No, when's that?" It's on the 25th of January. He said, "Would you believe that? That's my birthday!" I said that was a good one.[3] Then we'll start a Scottish society. We call it the Caledonian Society of Mountain Drive. So, we all got together at Sunset Club[4] that following weekend and we decided to start the club.

BRUSS: Did the people on Mountain Drive immediately welcome you into the community. It sounds like you got to know the people readily.

GREYSON: After I got settled in and took care of all my needs, of course, I was working and we had to get furniture and a whole bunch of things, so, it was about four weeks when we went out and spoke to the next door neighbors and was invited to the Sunset Club and met all the rest of the people on Mountain Drive. So, yes, it was pretty soon, within a few weeks.

BRUSS: Who gathered at the Sunset Club? Was it primarily men or was it...

GREYSON: All men. It was a men's Sunset Club. At the end of the week, when everybody had got through working, on Sunday evening, just before sunset, we would all get together at Jack Boegle's adobe house on top of the hill.[5] We'd sit on the veranda, watch the sun go down and talk about anything of interest that happened during that week, and other 00:06:00business was transacted, too, and anything that we wanted to trade or if somebody had something to sell or somebody needed some help, it was discussed at Sunset Club. We'd have a few drinks; a glass of wine, sing a few old songs. I remember distinctly that Gill Johnston and Bill Neely and Frank Robinson had attended the old City College when it was on the Riviera. They had done plays, Gilbert and Sullivan plays. So, they'd sing the old Gilbert and Sullivan songs and everybody had a wonderful time. People who were passing through town who knew the people on Mountain Drive, maybe they were living in San Francisco or Los Angeles, or wherever their work took them, they would always know where to 00:07:00find us on Sunday evening at Sunset Club. They would come on up and we'd find out what was happening down in other places, other parts of the world.

BRUSS: People would come in from outside of Mountain Drive and...

GREYSON: ...people who had lived on Mountain Drive and then had moved because of their work or for other reasons, still felt a tie with Mountain Drive so anytime they were passing along the coast in Santa Barbara they would stop by and say "Hi" and find out how things were going.

BRUSS: What would the women and children be doing while the Sunset Club meeting was going on?

GREYSON: The Sunset Club actually was after dinner on Sunday evening and usually right about seven, depending on the time of the year. It was a recognized thing. The women started their own club, the Stitch and Sew Club. They didn't hold that on Sunday evening. That was during the week. They would get together down at Gill Johnston's house. Audrey Johnston, his wife, is the one that started that 00:08:00particular club. The women would get together and talk about things that were of interest to them.[6][7]

BRUSS: Getting back to when you first arrived on Mountain Drive, what actually attracted you? Was there something that really appealed to you about the Mountain Drive area and how did you also first come around to purchasing the land that you're living on.

GREYSON: Well, I met Bobby Hyde and Floppy Hyde very shortly after arriving, it happened to be in October of that year. Every year on Mountain Drive we used to make our own wine and we'd go up to Paso Robles to Mel Casteel's 00:09:00vineyard.[8] And on Friday evening when everybody had got through their week's work we'd pile the children and our wives into the vehicles, all into our separate vehicles, and we'd all head up the highway towards Paso Robles and go to Mel Casteel's vineyard. Mel would be waiting for us. He'd probably already shot a deer and have it barbequed for us and we'd have a beer on arrival. We'd all sit around the big old oak tree outside of his house there and sing songs, the kids would go to sleep and we'd probably party until about midnight. The next morning, very early, five or six o'clock, we'd get up, have breakfast, go out in the vineyard and pick about one ton of grapes. Then, we sit around at lunchtime haggling with Mel Casteel about the price. This was a part of the ritual, back and forth, saying, "How about this much?" and "How 00:10:00about that much?" We always knew what the price was, but this was just a little bit of the old horse trading that we used to do. Finally, after we'd had a good lunch on Saturday afternoon, we'd head back down to Santa Barbara with the grapes and take them down to Bill Neely's house. He had the wine vat and the wine crushing equipment and also, Bill was our vintner. He was the one that was in charge of the finishing off of the wine. On Sunday morning, we'd get up and go over to Bill's place and first of all, we'd push all the grapes that we were going to use for white wine through a sieve and crush them separately for white wine, and the rest we would put into the big wine vat. Whether this story has 00:11:00been told before, I don't know. Mainly what happened was then that at lunch time, everybody would bring a potluck thing over to Bill's place and we'd have a group of maybe of about forty, fifty, sixty people and the children of all ages. We'd all sit around and the men, we would pick a Wine Queen for that particular year. Every year we had a Wine Queen, a different Wine Queen. Bill would make a plaque for her which to this day, is on the wall in the wine cellar, in the basement.

BRUSS: In whose wine cellar?

GREYSON: Bill Neely's wine cellar. Consequently, we would pick the Wine Queen and then she would be the first one to go into the wine vat and start crushing the grapes. Then she would pick her King. Then the crushing and the hard work 00:12:00started and the stomping and the music and everybody was having a fine time. It was just a most enjoyable day.

BRUSS: Did the women not wear clothes in the wine crushing?

GREYSON: Nobody wore clothes.

BRUSS: Nobody.

GREYSON: That was quite normal. In those days, they didn't call us hippies. It was long before the word "hippie" was even invented. We were considered the bohemian section of Santa Barbara and the word used to get around that no self-respecting mother would ever let her daughter go up to Mountain Drive on her own. Of course, that was sort of blown up out of proportion and people used to exaggerate, so forth, and so on. It was good clean fun, good clean fun. As a 00:13:00matter of fact, one year, I think in 1965, the Paramount film studios were making a film called "Seconds" with Rock Hudson and Salome Jens and they were looking for a segment in the film, they were looking for a place. They wanted about a fifteen minute segment of an Italian wine festival and they'd heard about the Wine Stomp on Mountain Drive, so they brought all their gear up to Mountain Drive for three days and filmed the whole Wine Stomp. This was in August, this was early. So, we had to use table grapes. They picked them up from Bakersfield. They provided us with a very, very large wine vat. The producer's name was Frankenheimer. They brought extras with them which they never did use. They said they'd never been on location before where they had been entertained 00:14:00instead of entertaining other people. They were quite thrilled with our organization and we knew exactly what we were doing. The only thing was that Rock Hudson was supposed to go in naked and so was Salome Jens, but they wouldn't do that. They put on pink skin tight tights and went in that way. He was actually pushed into the wine vat. It was full of grapes. We had so much fun then. They were filming for about eight hours over a period of three days and they used about a ten minute segment in their film.[9]

BRUSS: Where was the location of the wine vat?

GREYSON: At the same place where we do our Wine Stomp.

BRUSS: At the Neelys' house.

GREYSON: At the Neelys' house, yes.

BRUSS: Weren't you in charge of doing the cooking?

GREYSON: I was the caterer. I took care of all the catering for the film group and also for the Mountain Drive people as well. They paid us five thousand dollars for the use of our place. They came up a week later. They wanted to do 00:15:00some soundtrack and they brought a case of whiskey with them. They all got together at Frank Robinson's house and they dubbed some songs that we used to sing in the wine vat and they dubbed those and put them in with the film. I spoke to one of the fellows from the Paramount film studios later and he said they cut an awful lot of the film out, really good stuff they couldn't show because in the early 1960s there were certain things they couldn't show which they can now. But of course in those days they couldn't. So they made a whole tape of the leftover film and invited all the people who had worked on the filming from the studio and they probably enjoyed it, it seems.

BRUSS: Where did you all watch the film together?

GREYSON: We didn't watch that particular part of the film. That was down in 00:16:00Hollywood where they did that. But they told us about that.

BRUSS: So, they came up and enjoyed your company again even after the filming had been done.

GREYSON: They came up to dub the film and to make some more soundtrack and also, one more time, one of the guys came up and stayed with us overnight and had a nice conversation.

BRUSS: Would you describe how you bought your property?

GREYSON: My property? Well, while I was living at 330 East Mountain Drive, everybody else on Mountain Drive had built their own home. So, I never thought about building mine. I had a wife and three children and my wages were very low in those days. As a matter of fact, when I moved in and paid a hundred dollars a month rent, the first rent money. All I had left was about seventy-five dollars. I 00:17:00couldn't wait till my first paycheck came in. So, thinking about buying a house or even land was out of the question. But, I was being bugged by all the guys who were saying, "Come on George, buy yourself a piece of land. It's no good renting. Landowners are on top all the time. He'd either raise the rent on you or you might have to leave or something. Buy your own piece of land." I said, "Where?" They said, "Look around." So, that Sunday, just to get them off my back, so to speak, I went out knowing that I probably wouldn't find any land, but to say that I had gone and tried. First person I spoke to was Curt Watkins on West Mountain Drive. He had an acre right down below that he said he would sell me. Then I had to admit to him that I had no money and he said, "Don't worry; give me a hundred dollars a month for twelve months. I won't charge you any interest and at the end of twelve months, we'll put that twelve hundred dollars down as a down payment and you can give me a hundred dollars a month of 00:18:00the balance at six percent interest." Well, I couldn't turn that down; a good Scotsman, I could not turn down a deal like that. So, within four months, I built my little house, a small little place, twenty-four feet long and twelve feet wide and moved into it. I was saving my rent from my original place and putting it into the house. I built my own place. I didn't have very much money. While I was working at the Miramar Hotel at that particular time, in 1961 and 1962, they were bulldozing some of the old cottages they had built in 1890s and early part of the century.[10] They had some beautiful work, eight by eight redwood timbers, hard redwood, beautiful wood. Mr. Gawzner, the old man Gawzner who owned the Miramar in those days, said, "George, if you want any of this stuff, just you help yourself." I did. I brought it all to Mountain Drive. Some of doors were made at the turn of the century, good solid 00:19:00doors. So, I used doors for siding. I didn't have any money to buy new siding, so I used doors. I used 35 doors for siding in the house. Now, of course, they're all covered over now with redwood and everything else. That's how I started off. From then on, I never looked back. That's one of the best things I ever did.

BRUSS: So, you added on more buildings after building that initial building?

GREYSON: The main building was the one that was requisitioned for the family just to live in. Then, we had a separate storage shed that I built.

BRUSS: Could you also describe what a day on Mountain Drive; like let's say a weekend was like with your family or the Mountain Drive neighbors.

GREYSON: It varied year after year depending on the circumstances and what was happening. One time there, in the early part of the sixties, we had a friend who 00:20:00was a caretaker at the Hot Springs Club at the top of Hot Springs Road up in the mountains. It was a beautiful big house, a big rock house, a beautiful place. The history of it goes back to the turn of the century where horse and carriages would take people up there to soak in the hot springs, the sulphur springs up there. Anyway, our friend was the caretaker there, so we got to visit him on a Friday evening. We'd all take our Jeeps and old cars up there with the families and we'd stay over there overnight and come back the next day. Up there, they had this large vat that the hot water, hot sulphur water, was going into this bath from the mountainside through a pipe, temperature of about one hundred thirteen degrees. We'd all get into this big hot bath. We broke a record once. 00:21:00We had thirty-six people inside this one bath; the oldest one being Bobby Hyde and the youngest, a baby of six months old in the mother's arms. We just did it for fun, sort of thing. Also, on the side of there, too, they had separate baths in houses, little, sort of huts, where a person or two people would go in and bathe in the hot springs water in small bathtubs there, privately.

BRUSS: Is this still being used now?

GREYSON: No, it was burned down in 1964. The Coyote Fire came along and burned it all down to the ground.[11]

BRUSS: And this is near the Mountain Drive area?

GREYSON: No, this is up the top of Hot Springs Road, up in the mountains behind Montecito.

BRUSS: And people would go up by horse and carriage to get out there?

GREYSON: No, the people in the old days, it's been a hot springs, a health spa, since the turn of the century. In the old days, in the 20s and 30s, people would go from the Biltmore in horse and carriages up to the hot springs and soak in 00:22:00them and have a day's outing, then come back down again.

BRUSS: Was it behind San Ysidro Ranch?

GREYSON: No, not as far over as that. It's Hot Springs Road. Do you know Hot Springs Road? Just go right across and keep going up the mountain there. There's not much there now. It's all burned down. But there was lots of history attached to that place. As a matter of fact, after that burned down, I told you in the following year, we had that Paramount Film Studios came up and they left this beautiful big wine vat with us. So, the previous year, the hot springs had burned down during the Coyote Fire. So, we missed our hot bath. We started off, we had a good idea, we used this big hot tub or this big wine vat and turned it into a hot tub. We got a heater and we heated up the water, had a small little tub next to it that we used to wash our feet and go in there and soak in the hot 00:23:00water. That was the beginning of the first hot tubs, which actually started right here on Mountain Drive. Once that caught on, I also bought a wine vat from Pierre Lafond for sixty dollars. It was a five hundred gallon redwood wine vat and I mounted it on some concrete, got an old steam cleaner that they used to steam clean engines out with in the old days, took the coils off and had a little gas fire underneath it and heated up the water that way. So, I had one. Before we got through, within two or three years, I would imagine there was about five or six hot tubs on Mountain Drive. We'd have parties and it was a recognized thing. Everybody, towards the end of the evening, would jump into the hot tub and relax before going home. Of course, now, hot tubs are very popular all over the place. But they actually started here on Mountain Drive.[12]

BRUSS: During the week, I'd imagine the children would go off to school. Would the parents often times not have full-time jobs?

GREYSON: No, no. The kids used to go to Cold Springs School. They cut a trail through there and they'd go down through Westmont to go to Cold Springs School and then, when they got older, they'd go to junior high and high school. The men were working. They all had jobs. Most of them were artists or craftsmen or teachers, schoolteachers or craftsmen. Bill Neely, for instance, was a ranger at Yosemite for many, many years, twenty years, I believe. He got a citation from the Minister of the Interior for the good work that he did. He was the ranger up in Tuolumne Meadows.

BRUSS: I'd imagine the people, the parents being craftspeople, would spend their 00:25:00days during the week, though, probably on Mountain Drive, often times, wouldn't they?

GREYSON: Mainly, as I say, most of the people had jobs; Frank Robinson is an architect from way back. He had his little office down in the El Paseo.[13][14] I was a chef. I have been all my life and worked six days a week, mostly on split shifts and in the evenings. There were schoolteachers. There were potters, letter makers, such things as. Well you name it. There was just a cross-section of people, men, like I said, all had their jobs. There was nobody unemployed. Women, mostly, had a 00:26:00full time job looking after the children, two or three children, whatever the case may be. They had a fulltime job looking after the children and looking after their menfolk. Although, some of them did work part-time. It was, like I say, there was no - - hanky panky or anything like that. It was just a case that everybody worked hard. But, we used to work hard and we used to play hard. On the weekends, when we're all free, that's when we used to - - Or, if it happened that there was a party during the week that happened to fall on a certain day, like Fourth of July, or Bastille, or whatever, then, of course we'd still, when we got through work, we'd still attend that party if it happened to be the middle of the week.

BRUSS: Can you describe the flag raising and how that got started?

GREYSON: Flag raising was, mainly everybody had a flag. We had a flag maker here on Mountain Drive at one time. Thomas Sheldon, his name was. He's not with us anymore now. Tom was our flag maker, official flag maker and we'd make up a 00:27:00design and he would make a flag for us. [15][16] We all had to fly the Union Jack occasionally, depending on what time of the year it was or what, if it was on Bastille Night, we would all fly the French flag.

BRUSS: Is the Union Jack a Scottish flag?

GREYSON: The Union Jack is the flag of the British Isles. Four flags in one. They call it the Union Jack. Then we had other flags as well. Skull and cross-bones, all fun things. We have a Yes and No flag. In other words, if we didn't want any guests or anybody coming around on a particular time or day, we'd just put up a No flag and then our friends and neighbors would know that we didn't want to be disturbed. We were probably in the middle of doing some very intricate job or if the person's a writer, he was studying and writing and didn't want to be disturbed, then he'd just put a No flag up and people would 00:28:00know that he didn't want to be disturbed at that time.

BRUSS: During some of the parties and festivities, did you help prepare meals for the festivities?

GREYSON: No, everybody brought something with them. The onus wasn't on any particular person. Everybody brought something with them. A potluck sort of thing. On the bigger parties, we'd hire a bartender. One person to take care of the drinks. But the rest of the food, everybody brought it themselves. So, everybody sort of helped everybody else out.

BRUSS: During the Sunset Club meetings with the men, did all men sort of have equal say? What went on during those meetings?

GREYSON: The Sunset meeting? As I mentioned before, they're just mostly 00:29:00discussing what had happened during the previous week and what we were going to do in the coming week and exchanging ideas between ourselves. As I mentioned before, any one of our friends who might be dropping by, if he was travelling from San Francisco to Los Angeles or vice versa, would drop in and bring us up to date on what was happening up in Mill Valley or up in Big Sur or wherever they were. That's how we kept in touch and kept knowledgeable about other things that were happening around.

BRUSS: Did you organize parties during those meetings or...?

GREYSON: Sunset Club?

BRUSS: Yeah.

GREYSON: Sunset Club itself is a small party. I mean people would just get together, the guys would just talk and joke, drink, sing a few songs, whatever. It didn't last that long; usually an hour before sunset and usually a couple of hours after sunset.

BRUSS: Did there tend to be certain men in the group that were the leaders, sort of...?

GREYSON: Not really.

BRUSS: Not really?

GREYSON: Everybody was trying to be a leader, but nobody was a leader. Everybody had their own thing to say, to do. No, we didn't go in for leaders. Everybody was a leader.

BRUSS: Can you describe your impressions of Bobby Hyde and his family?

GREYSON: Bobby was a little bit ahead of his time. He was conservationist and he was concerned about the environment long before it became popular. Bobby and Floppy were two of the most beautiful people I've met. When Bobby bought this land up here and a quarter section about. I believe it was 40 acres. It was right after a large fire that happened, I believe it was in the late forties or early fifties. The whole hillside was blackened and he bought this quarter 00:31:00section and he sold acres to people that he liked, that he thought would be good neighbors. Like I said, mostly artists or craftsmen or teachers or whatever. So he would sell them the acre, fifteen hundred dollars in those days, and they'd pay whatever they could afford.

BRUSS: Fifteen hundred dollars an acre?

GREYSON: Uh-huh.

BRUSS: And how many acres did he own?

GREYSON: I think, about thirty or forty acres. I wasn't here when the initial breaking of the land was. When I came here there wasn't anything much available on East Mountain Drive. That's why I came to West Mountain Drive. Yeah, they were about fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars an acre, I believe, depending on where it was. When I arrived here, mostly everybody had picked out their acre and had already built, or were in the process of building their homes. As a 00:32:00matter of fact, there was no building code in those days, in the fifties. There was a big estate right next to Mountain Drive called the Bothin Estate. Mrs. Bothin, who died in 1965 at the age of a hundred and one, came out of the house once on her walking stick, and she's looking up, this is probably in the late middle fifties as the story goes, she looked up on Mountain Drive and saw these little houses going up and her caretaker, his name was Felix, he'd been with her for about 20 years, and she looked up and she pointed her stick up at the mountain and she said, "Felix, what are all those chicken coops going up there." These were all the Mountain Drivers building their homes. They got up and got the old pier at Gaviota that had been wrecked. They went up there and got all the old lumber, big timbers, brought them down to Mountain Drive and everybody were building their own type of home. Each one is unique, built in its own way. 00:33:00Here we are, thirty odd years later, and they're still there, still standing. They were probably built obviously very strong and with care.

BRUSS: And this woman was, she lived on the east side of Mountain Drive?

GREYSON: Mrs. Bothin, yes. Mrs. Bothin owned all of the Teahouse, which is above Mountain Drive, which is about a hundred acres in area. Also, the acres down below which belongs to Gene Hackman right now. He bought it. She died, as I say, in 1965, at the age of a hundred and one. Her estate is quite extensive.[17] We were building our houses up behind these estates in Montecito, looking down on them and we had these beautiful - - in those days, as a matter of fact, nobody wanted to move up to Mountain Drive. Now, of course, it's a totally different story. But in those days, we had the whole place to ourselves. When we had a party or had a get-together only the 00:34:00Mountain Drive people came. Nobody else came up from downtown. There were no gate-crashers, everybody knew everybody else. It was just a nice free sort of atmosphere that we had going at that time.

BRUSS: I hear that people didn't even lock their doors?

GREYSON: No, nobody locked their doors. There was no need to.

BRUSS: And the roads weren't even paved. When did the roads finally become paved on Mountain Drive?

GREYSON: Well, Mountain Drive was paved when I came here in 1960. Coyote Road, I believe, was paved in nineteen, somewhere in the middle 1950s, I believe. Coyote Road was a dirt road. Mountain Drive, West Mountain Drive, was a dirt road when I came here in 1960, but it's since been paved. So, I would imagine, somewhere in the region between in the fifties.

BRUSS: It was paved. Can you describe some of the other festivities that went on 00:35:00during the year?

GREYSON: Well, most of the time, it was just - - we'd have our grape stomping, we'd have our plays, like in the summertime, before Bill went, Bill Neely went to Yosemite to do his two months up there, the ranger. We'd all get together and throw some sort of a play. "A Midsummer Night's Dream," or, "The Play Within A Play." They'd use the large swimming pool that Bobby Hyde had built and around the back of the swimming pool were all wine bottles that he had used to put in the cement. The pool was never a success. It always used to leak, so we used it as an amphitheater. We used to put on our plays in there. So, we'd put on different plays. Everybody would get their, remember their lines, study them. 00:36:00We'd put on some very good plays. As a matter of fact, Dame Judith Anderson came up once for one of our plays. She was really excited about it. She had such a good time. She just couldn't stop laughing all the time..., hilarious. So, we'd have plays. We'd put on "Scrooge" at Christmastime for the kids. I took the part of Scrooge one year. I think mainly because it was sleep or cast outside. I had to memorize and nobody else had time or didn't want to, so it finally finished up in my hands and I memorized it. We put "Scrooge" on one Christmas.

BRUSS: Would the children and the women and the men be involved in the plays?

GREYSON: Oh, yes. Everybody would be involved. The kids would be involved in the plays. Like on Twelfth Night, we used the large house up on Mountain Drive. We'd have it all decorated up as a big baronial hall. Everybody would bring food and 00:37:00we'd all get dressed up in medieval costumes. Sandy Hill was the one who used to bake the cake, called the bean cake. We'd cut it up into pieces and anybody who, this was distributed amongst the males, anyone, the person who got the bean in the cake became the Bean King. Then he chose his queen, the Bean Queen. Then they chose all the members of the court as well, this was sometimes eight or nine people. Well, yes, everybody was involved.

BRUSS: Who came up with the idea of like the Bean King or Queen?

GREYSON: Just a part of the tradition.

BRUSS: Did you all discuss that at the Sunset Club?

GREYSON: No, just a part of the tradition. It was already established. It might have been talked about once. Then, from then on, it became standard operating procedure. Every year, we'd just put that same play on.

BRUSS: Were a lot of these things ongoing when you arrived?

GREYSON: Oh, yes, yes. Most of them were ongoing, except for the Bobby Burn's supper which we celebrated on the 25th of January. I was sort of responsible for putting that on and that started in 1961, in January.

BRUSS: Where was that held?

GREYSON: That was held up in the big house, our Castle, we called it, up on Mountain Drive.[18] We had 150 people there one time. Don MacGillivray was the mayor of Santa Barbara. He was Scotch. His mother and father were from Canada and they were visiting. He brought them up to the house. We had the full bagpipe band. In those days, Bill Trueman had formed a bagpipe band and he was, this was their debut. He heard about us throwing our Caledonia Society Scottish party up on Mountain Drive, so he brought the whole bagpipe, the whole bagpipe band came up, about eight members, a big drum major dressed in a big busby with his leopard skin around his shoulder and a big drum beating 00:39:00away there, and three or four bagpipes blasting out and two small drums in this one house.[19] So, you can imagine what happened and it was just hilarious. Everybody had worn tartan of some description, either kilts or some description of tartan. Everybody was in the mood. We had a little bar going. Everybody paid fifty cents a drink or something. Everybody brought food. I made the haggis, a traditional Scottish meal, about thirty-five pound haggis. We'd parade that in with the bagpipes and Robert Burns wrote a poem for the haggis. It was called, "The Address to a Haggis." It was about six or seven verses and I would recite that. Then, we'd take it back to the main table and everybody would indulge. Then, we'd have Scottish dancing, solos, somebody 00:40:00imitating Henry Lauder. Oh, we'd just have a wonderful time. As a matter of fact, KPFK, which was a radio station in Los Angeles, came up that particular year. They taped the whole thing from beginning to end and every year from then on for many, many years they broadcast that on the 25th of January every year from Los Angeles.

BRUSS: What year was that that they did this taping?

GREYSON: In 1962.

BRUSS: And how many people were at the party?

GREYSON: About one hundred fifty. Then it became too many. We just couldn't hold any more. It became so popular. We had people all through Montecito we didn't even know that heard about it calling us up asking if they could come and we just couldn't hold anybody, take any more people. There just wasn't enough room. And so, what happened then was the result of that, the offshoot of it, they formed a Scottish Society in Santa Barbara that still exists to this day. And that was an offshoot from the Caledonia Society that I formed on Mountain Drive in 1960. They have a membership, I believe, of 300 or 400 people now and they 00:41:00meet every year. As a matter of fact, I helped them out on a few occasions by addressing the haggis for them, reciting the Burns poetry. Our little Caledonia Society is pretty well fell by the wayside now. We have fond memories of it but we don't meet any more like we used to do. Things change as they always do, so they're just fond memories now.

BRUSS: Can you also describe some of the friends which you had on Mountain Drive: the Robinsons, Merv Lane, or any of the other people that you'd like to talk about?

GREYSON: Yes, they were all friends. Frank was an architect. Frank was..., Frank 00:42:00actually threw the party for Fiesta at his house. That was one of his parties that he threw every year. We'd all meet at the El Paseo where Frank had his office, the courtyard at the El Paseo, Frank has an office down there for his architect work. We'd meet down there lunchtime, then we'd go on top of the roof on State Street and watch the parade go by. Then, we'd go to the Acapulco and a few bars down there and just have a good time and then come on back to Mountain Drive and then finish the evening off with a nice Fiesta party at Frank's house.

BRUSS: Okay, you were just describing Frank Robinson.

GREYSON: Yeah, and then, like I say, Frank was my next door neighbor initially before I moved into, before I bought my piece of land, built my home. Of course, 00:43:00Frank's birthday being on the 25th of January, we celebrated his birthday as well, at the same time. Merv Lane lived right behind us, as a matter of fact.[20] Merv and his wife of that time, June Lane, they had a dancing studio, at least a large room in their house, where they taught dancing. They were teaching dancing to students. Bill Neely, who lived down below, as I mentioned before, and Bill was a potter. He did other things besides that. I mentioned before, going to Yosemite and being a ranger up there, amongst other things.

BRUSS: Was Merv Lane, was living, when you were renting he was living in that same area?

GREYSON: When I was renting, he was living directly behind me. He was in a group 00:44:00of people, I think, Peggy Robinson and Merv. Peggy used to sing. Merv played the recorder. There was a fellow; his name was Erich Katz and he had taught music in New York City, in a big music academy.[21] He had retired. He came to Santa Barbara to retire. When he came here, he just could not retire, so he lived on Mountain Drive and started up this Collegium Musicum, I believe they call it. It was all the old instruments going back for hundreds of years, medieval instruments. They would practice on them. Merv, Peggy would do the singing, and then a fellow named Tim Marset, he used to play another 00:45:00instrument there. I think there was four of them altogether. They would give free shows at the Lobero or the museum, playing these old instruments from the museum. Erich Katz was actually the instigator of that, who came out of retirement, with all the knowledge that he had of music and we formed that little group on Mountain Drive.

BRUSS: Would some of the children take classes from some of the people, some of the artists or musicians or craftspeople on Mountain Drive?

GREYSON: Not really, it sort of rubbed off. They were living with it day by day. It was a natural thing. If they got turned on to it, they would do it. Trying to think back now, I don't think many of them followed in their father's footsteps as far as trade is concerned. They all did their own thing. They're all doing their own thing now in different ways. For instance, it's very difficult making a career out of pottery. Now, even Bill, who's a damn good potter, would have to 00:46:00supplement his income by going to Yosemite every year as a ranger to earn a little extra money. So, then there was other people. For instance, there was, oh, we had a schoolteacher there. Schoolteachers who lived on Mountain Drive, high school teachers. One fellow named Joel Andrews was one of best harpists on the West Coast, I guess.[22] He would give recitals on harp. He would come up to Mountain Drive along with a girl named Susan Bolston who's also a harpist and they would go to Merv Lane's studio, dance studio, and we'd all gather up there and listen to a beautiful evening of harp music. There were so many things like that that happened. It's really hard to bring them all back to mind.

BRUSS: What were the pottery wars like? Could you describe the pottery wars?

GREYSON: They called them Pot Wars actually, but they were mainly that, like the potters. We had maybe three on Mountain Drive: Bill Neely, Ed Schertz and (?). They would not just do pottery, but have leather makers, sandal makers, have painters, just a host, whole cross-section of artists and craftsmen. About once a month, we would get together on a Sunday and we'd have a "Pot War," what they'd call a Pot War.[23] The potters were always trying to outsell each other, so forth and so on. It was just a fun thing, really. People would come over from all over the place, and we would earn a little extra money doing that. I used to have a little pump organ, a very small organ that they used to have in, the missionaries used to use these particular instruments 00:48:00in Africa to bring Christianity to the natives and they're like a big black box. You fold them out, they stand up, and you pump them, then you play music. I used to put a white band around my neck, pretend to be a parson, and sing all these Moody and Sankey,[24] spiritual, Christian songs, like "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and things like "Onward, Christian Soldiers", and all these old songs. We'd pump them out there and then pretty soon, the guys would come around, and the girls and they'd all be in chorus singing these songs. It was sort of fun and on a Sunday.

BRUSS: You also were involved with metal work. Was that during the sixties?

GREYSON: I started making, that was in the late sixties. We had a big college 00:49:00right next door to us called Westmont College and they feed those kids out of tin cans, number ten cans. So, I used to go there and get these cases of cans and a friend of mine named Phil Mandelli, who's a very good sculptor; he's doing very well now. I bought these acetylene torches and he showed me how to use them. So, I started making lanterns from these number ten cans. But, I couldn't keep up I was selling them so fast. I used to go down to the Renaissance Faire in Los Angeles, which incidentally, most of the Mountain Drivers used to go down there to. When the Renaissance Faire first started, it was started by KPFK in Los Angeles in the early sixties, there was probably about twenty percent or maybe twenty-five percent of the people, of the artists and craftsmen, were down from Mountain Drive. We'd all power down there, in those days, it was for three 00:50:00weekends and we'd take all our lanterns and everything down there and stay overnight. We had all the Hollywood people coming up there, just literally, thousands of people milling through that place. So, I used to sell all my lanterns through there, through there mostly. That Renaissance Faire still exists today.[25] Things have changed with that. It's not the same as it used to be. It was a lot more freer in the beginning. But there's more rules and regulations now.

BRUSS: How was it freer in the beginning?

GREYSON: In the beginning, there was just being formed. They were relying on craftsmen and artists to come down there to make it a success. So, we'd go down there and we'd take all the families down with us and we'd have a little party ourselves in the evening after all the customers had left at six o'clock. We'd all get on the stage and just have fun ourselves.

BRUSS: Would you all camp out in...

GREYSON: Oh, yes. We're all camping in cars or vans or sleeping on the ground. It was usually quite nice weather.

BRUSS: So, you'd bring your families as well.

GREYSON: It was at the Paramount Ranch outside Los Angeles. Of course, we were selling. We would make our own stands. Anyone that hasn't been to the Renaissance Faire, it's quite hard to describe, but it's like going back to Medieval England, Robin Hood, the old Elizabethan plays on the stage, everything. It's really a very worthwhile interesting thing to attend.

BRUSS: Can you also describe how Mountain Drive has changed since the fifties or sixties?

GREYSON: Like every other place, Mountain Drive changes. It's no exception. It changes with age; people get older, we're talking now twenty-five or thirty years ago. In those days, people were twenty or thirty, thirty-three years old, whatever, full of life, full of ambitions and everything else. A lot of them 00:52:00realized their ambitions and a more sedate settled way of life now than they were in those days. Maybe their interests have come in different ways. The ones that remained on Mountain Drive, who are still with us, are quite content with their lives. Their kids are all grown up; the kids that were six months old are twenty-seven, twenty-eight. They're married and have kids of their own. Things change and the things that you do, even in your own life, if you look at your own life, the things that you were doing when you were thirty years old, you don't do when you're sixty or seventy and so, when you call that a change, it's a natural change. So, these things have a habit of, you go back on the good times, on the things that happened, but then you look forward to the future as well and there's other things to be doing. Other new things to do all the time. In my particular case, I no longer am a chef after forty-three years of being a chef. When I started out, I was getting five dollars a week, room and board in a 00:53:00hotel in Nottingham, England, the Victoria Hotel working split shifts, like I say, for five dollars a week and room and board. When I finished my career, I was working for one of the most wealthiest guys in America by the name of Ray Kroc, who owns the McDonalds Corporation. He died about two years ago and so, the ranch came up for sale and I decided then it was a good time for me to quit. I was working from one extreme to another. I started from learning the business at five dollars a week, room and board and I finished up at the end of my forty-three years of working in a kitchen that was probably one of the best, the prettiest, the nicest kitchens on the West Coast. Also, I had full control over the kitchen, over the menus, over the ordering and buying. Money was no object. 00:54:00I wasn't tied down because of the restrictions on budget control or things like that. It was probably one of the nicest jobs a chef could ever have. When I finished there, I said to myself, there was no other place, after ten years of working for Ray Kroc, who renewed my contract every year for me and finally when he died, I decided that was the time I should change my sights now and do something else which I'd been planning on doing. Now, I do silversmithing, jewelry work, also, getting very interested in, in the moment, photography.

BRUSS: Great.

GREYSON: Life goes on.

BRUSS: When did you start and stop working for Ray Kroc?

GREYSON: Two years ago.

BRUSS: Two years, you stopped? And you started ten years previous to that?

GREYSON: I started working for him ten years prior to that.

BRUSS: Is there anything else that you would like to add, in regards to, in this interview?

GREYSON: There's so much. It's really hard to compress twenty-seven years into an hour's interview. I think probably if anyone is really interested who gets to know the names of the people who were there, who lived at that time on Mountain Drive, probably one of the best sources of information was the Mountain Drive newspaper that we used to print, our own newspaper and the Mountain Drive Grapevine, of which I have several copies here from sixty and sixty-one and I'm sure I understand that they, you have copies there too. It would be a good idea probably to get all those copies together, get them sequential, Xerox off as many as possible so the children on Mountain Drive can have a copy of it without having to go to a museum, so they could look back on it and give it to their children and say, "This is what our grandfather, our fathers and mothers used to do." This was a part of my project I was going to do about two or three months ago, but I understand now that a lot of those newspapers have finished up in the museum.[26] So, it would be rather nice to get together 00:56:00and maybe at least put them in sequence from the beginning. I have some; I know other people have some and we can probably accomplish that. That would probably be more beneficial in the long run because that is the history of Mountain Drive, week by week, those newspapers.

BRUSS: Okay, well, thank you, George.