Eliot Macy Interview

--(Interview begins)--

REMAK: My first question is how did you come to live on Mountain Drive?

MACY: Let's see. We came there in 1951 from the East Coast. Two years previous to that we had spent a year in Denmark. I was going to be a writer. I was brought up in the East. My family was in the East. I wasn't making very good progress at being a writer. Susie's family, my wife's family--Susie was born in Santa Barbara[1], and it was her place. Bobby had bought this land up on Mountain Drive--50 acres, I think--bought it very reasonably in 00:01:001943, I think, or around there. We decided we would go out there, and it would be a freer place for me to write. Anyway, it ended up with me not being very successful as a writer, but I did work with Bobby in developing his land. My reason for going out there really was to get away from the East. (laughter)

REMAK: How many people were living up there when you arrived in 1951?

MACY: Let's see. I think Bill Richardson had a place up on the top. I'm not sure whether Tommy White had or not. Louise Casey I think had started a place, and 00:02:00I'm not sure... Bill Richardson and Louise Casey[2] were the only two up there at the time on the upper--above the Mountain Drive. And below the Mountain Drive I don't think at that time--1951--any of the lower part had been developed, except friends of Bobby's, the Delaneys. They had started a place. Oh, there was one other place; just above the Mountain Drive a French family had built a place, the De Malvilles. And when we arrived, they had started it but they had sold it to the Millers, and I think the Millers were 00:03:00there. And that's about it in 1951. It had not been developed very much. This is before Bill Neely had gone up there and I think before Frank Robinson[3] had started. There weren't very many places up there. I remember in 1946 we were out there, and Bobby was just about to put in an advertisement for selling acres at $2000 an acre, $50 down, $50 a month. Can you believe it?

REMAK: Tell me about the idea that Bobby Hyde had about starting a community.

MACY: Well, he was very interested in making available to returning servicemen, especially those who leaned toward the artistic side, who wanted a place to live 00:04:00that they could afford and a place where they could be free. And of course, he was interested in interesting people. I think that he found that those who were interested in writing or painting or music were more interesting.

REMAK: Had he done something like this before?

MACY: Bobby? I don't think so. No. During the war he worked in a defense factory. Previous to that he--Bobby's done so many things it's hard to put your finger on it. But previous to that mostly he'd been a writer.

REMAK: When did you first meet Bobby Hyde?

MACY: Personally, I met him for the first time in 1945. I had corresponded with 00:05:00him, but I did not meet him until after his daughter and I had been married for three or four years. He was in California and I was in the East, and my wife and I were married in the East.

REMAK: Now did he select the people he sold land to very carefully, or... I mean, you said he was advertising. Would he turn people down if he thought they weren't compatible?

MACY: Now that I can't answer. I really don't know. I think that he would give them a try, and they weren't right they wouldn't last [laughter].

REMAK: Let's talk about your first home up there. Did you build it yourself or 00:06:00did you move into a house that was already...

MACY: What happened, Bobby and his older stepson, Oliver Andrews,[4] had started four-wall, what we called the four walls. It was a system for building that Bobby had developed. It was like the adobe system, but he did it with concrete. He had a couple of steel forms which would make a concrete block two feet long--I think this is correct--and a foot high and a foot... That doesn't sound right, but I think it is. (laughter) Anyway, what he would do is, after he had made the footings he would put this form on the top of the footing, fill it with concrete, and then--it was a fairly dry mix--he would lift it off and put the steel form next to it and fill 00:07:00another, and simply go around the foundation until he had one course. Then he would follow that with a second course and a third course. Very efficient.

REMAK: More efficient really than making adobe bricks, wasn't it?

MACY: I think adobe bricks were made in a similar way [but] I don't know if they were cast on. This was a system for casting on blocks rather than buying blocks and building by mortaring them up. But he and Oliver had constructed four-walls. There were doorway openings, there were window openings, and there was no roof. My wife and I bought this structure, and we put a roof on it and windows on it, floors and the rest.

REMAK: Did you live in it while you were doing that?

MACY: No. When we first went there... We went out there in the fall of 1948, and we moved into a house the Bobby's second stepson, Joel Andrews and a friend of his had built on Coyote Road on land that Bobby had--I don't know when he bought this; I think it was after the original purchase. Anyway, we moved into that house and rented it. Then we saw the place on Mountain Drive and eventually bought it. We started finishing it in the spring of 1949, and we made it more or 00:09:00less livable. And then we moved away for two years.

REMAK: I see. Then someone else had the house?

MACY: My sister and her husband... Eric and Nina Maurer.[5]

REMAK: Did you have professional help putting the roof on and putting the floors in, or did you do it all yourself?

MACY: We didn't have professional help, but we did have somebody--his last name was Page, I've forgotten his first name--I think he lived in Hope Ranch and he 00:10:00needed a job. But he was not a professional carpenter. The instructor was Bobby. He would come and, and he would say, "Well, you do this and this," and then he'd walk away. (laughter) And then we would try to do it.

REMAK: At that time did you have utilities?

MACY: Oh, yeah. We did wire the house, and we had plumbing. Let's see. Oh, yeah, the water. That was funny. Getting the water up there--we were above the gravity feed--our system was we had a forty-gallon tank we put on top of the house, and 00:11:00the pump was down the hill a little bit. It was between where the Millers' house was and our house, which was incidentally--which is now 224 East Mountain Drive. You can see how the concrete blocks are made. It's the only one up there that looks like that. Anyway, there was a pump. It went up to Bill Richardson's. There was a line going up there and one to Louise Casey. And the pump was always breaking down, and we'd be out of water. Three small children... It was a circus. It was run by electricity, but that was really no problem.

REMAK: Was there a road up there, or did the road... (laughter) I'm sorry. I know I sound as though you were out in the middle of the wilds somewhere.

MACY: Well it was much wilder than it presently is. There was a road up there, essentially where the road now goes--the driveway. But it was adobe, and when it rained it was just impossible to get up the road. Sometimes we would borrow Bobby's personnel carrier if we got stuck to haul us out or up. But that was a 4-wheel drive vehicle with a very low gear ratio. It would go almost anywhere. But when it rained we always groaned because we knew that cars wouldn't be able 00:13:00to get up and down that road.

REMAK: Did people park their cars down on Mountain Drive?

MACY: Yeah, but at that time there weren't very many. There was Bill Richardson; there were my sister and her husband and ourselves and the Millers at that time. There were just the four of us. Five of us; I'd forgotten Louise Casey.

REMAK: Were you trying to live off the land in any way? Were you growing your own vegetable, things like that?

MACY: No, we didn't do that... I think that came later. I don't think anybody had a garden. Bill was a fisherman, and he would get fish, lobster, that sort of thing. None of the ones above the Mountain Drive were gardeners. This was in 00:14:001951. I don't think any of the ones below did either. This is before Bobby planted the avocado orchard.

REMAK: Did he have his swimming pool yet?

MACY: I think the wall was [in place], and then I think Bobby did some additional work on it... I think it was first filled not until they adopted the Rodriguez family.[6]

REMAK: How long did you live there?

MACY: We moved away in 1957. But to Santa Barbara. We didn't move out of the city, and we were still in contact with them. Bill Neely, of course, was a 00:16:00potter. I think Frank did some also.

REMAK: You didn't do things like that?

MACY: No. I helped Bobby. I did surveying with him, I did some building, but none of the crafts. I was also trying to write.

REMAK: Did you have a "No" flag that you put up when you didn't want people to come about the place because many of the men, indeed like you, were trying to write or do things, and they were there during the day, as opposed to the usual commuting community.

MACY: I think that was mainly Jack Boegle.[7] And Jack 00:17:00came a little later... That was at least the middle or late fifties. I can remember a remark that Frank Robinson (made), "When I think of people I think of men." It was a very sexist community.

REMAK: What role did women have then?

MACY: They took care of babies, they did the cooking, they... Peggy Robinson had a lovely voice and sang. But I don't know... I think they were mainly 00:18:00homemakers. You know, this was the fifties.

REMAK: Well, what about the celebrations we hear about, like Twelfth Night, for examples?

MACY: It was a yearly event... a big party to which almost all of the people who were building houses up there came. It was just a lovely party.

REMAK: It sounds very nice. How did Bobby Burns" birthday start to be celebrated? It was somebody else's birthday, too, wasn't it?

MACY: I really don't know the answer to that. Who was the Scot up there? I just don't know. I don't know the answer to that, but I think that became a tradition. Again, after we had we moved away. That was not one of the earlier ones. Twelfth Night[8] was the first, and, of course, the Wine Stomp.[9]

REMAK: Well, that started early, didn't it?

MACY: Fairly early.

REMAK: Did you go with them to pick the grapes?

MACY: One year I did, up to the Kinevan Ranch... I think Bill Neely organized that, because he made wine. And after he came up and started to build a house it became a yearly event. I remember going up there in a big truck, and we just 00:20:00loaded it with boxes of grapes. We picked them. And then drove down... We put them in the vat and stomped them.

REMAK: You really stomped them?

MACY: Oh yeah, you get in and walk around in it. It squishes through your toes... It was a lot of fun.

REMAK: ...about the Go Club?

MACY: That was one of the things that Bobby started. There was also a chess group, not chess but Kriegsspiel, which is based on chess. It's a kind of blind 00:21:00chess where the opponents don't see each other's moves, and you need a third person with a separate--each of the three persons has his own board and men. The contestants guess what the other person has moved. The third person, who is called a monitor, keeps track of the real moves, and as each person moves the monitor will say that either white or black has moved. He will also tell if the 00:22:00move that one attempts to make is possible or not. You might try to sweep the diagonal with a bishop, for example, but if there's something in the way you won't be able to go all the way. He gives a little bit of information. He has to announce when the king is in check, and he also announces when there's an opportunity for a pawn try--the pawn takes a diagonal. The person wouldn't know if there is something at the diagonal unless the monitor says. The monitor says either that you have a try or several tries. You get one chance to guess where one might be, and if you miss, then you have to make another move. It's 00:23:00interesting how much you can infer from the little information you get from the monitor. Anyway, sometimes we had as much as six games, that would be eighteen people, and you rotate. You completed a game and then try with another combination. So we did that, and it was fun. I think the Go was similar, except that was just two contestants.

REMAK: What about your children? Did they have a good time growing up there?

MACY: Well, we were there from 1951 to 1957, and when we went there our oldest was five. We had three of our kids eventually go to Cold Springs School. Yes, I 00:24:00think they had a good time up there. The Millers who were just below us had three children... They were playmates. But there were other children that they had to play with. It was a great place to play.

REMAK: Were people involved in politics very much at that time?

MACY: (laughter) I laugh because I was very involved... I got involved in the Stevenson campaign in 1952--in Democratic politics, obviously. I don't know how it came to be but I was one of four persons of a sort of a planning committee for the "Y". And after that I got involved in Americans for Democratic Action. I became deeply involved in politics. In fact I think I spent more time in 00:26:00politics than I did in anything else. (laughter) Bobby was the sort of person who was always interested in Democratic politics, but he wasn't that involved. He was always interested. He loved to talk about it... I think I personally had the deepest involvement. And later my sister became very involved. She was with the Central Committee of the Democratic Party for a number of years.

REMAK: Was it mostly national politics?

MACY: Oh, no. I got into it through national politics, and then there was the state legislature level and congressional level, but also municipal elections, 00:27:00school board elections and the whole gamut.

REMAK: Did anybody from Mountain Drive serve in the local government?

MACY: Not when I was there. I don't think anybody actually ran for office.[10]

REMAK: Did you find the community up there stimulating to your work, or was it 00:29:0000:28:00more distracting?

MACY: I would say neither one, neither stimulating nor distracting. People left you alone if you were trying to work. I think everybody was trying to be serious about what he or she was doing... But I can't think of a way in which it was stimulating. It was a nice place to live. You know, interesting people...

REMAK: Did you become interested in any other arts when you were up there?

MACY: I can say that I came to have an understanding and appreciation of the other arts...

REMAK: You were about to say about the arts...

MACY: Oliver was involved in creating scenery for the theater, and through that got a number of us involved in a theatrical production of "High Tor"... at the 00:31:00Lobero. That was... 1955, 1956, 1957.

REMAK: Did you do any acting?

MACY: I had a very small part. (laughter)

REMAK: Let me ask you about some people that you mentioned up there, if you could describe them for me... Bill Richardson, what was he like?

MACY: Bill has many sides to him. He's a hunter, fisherman; there's that side to 00:32:00him. And then there's the writer side. My first experience with Bill--we had pulled a house trailer across the country in 1951, and we couldn't get it up the hill. The car wasn't strong enough. We left it parked down on Mountain Drive waiting until for the time when we could get it up the hill. One of his dogs was taking a siesta under the trailer when we got around to pulling it up the hill, and the poor thing didn't get out in time, and I think we ran over one of its legs. It didn't seriously cripple it, but it did do some damage. I remember that 00:33:00Bill was very upset about that, but when I met him he was very understanding, but it was an unfortunate situation. Bill at that time, I think, was a little defensive, but we didn't have any difficulty whatsoever. And of course I used to see Bill at the Ellerbe Writers Group once a month. It used to meet at Bobby's mother's house on Salsipuedes Street. Bill would read his stories, and very graphic and exciting stories they were--very intense.

REMAK: I'm not sure I got the name of that--L B, as in the initials, L and B?

MACY: Ellerbe. That was the name of the person. He was a writer--published all over the place. Paul Ellerbe. He was somebody that Bobby found, and they got to know one another. This was an institution for many, many years--about fifteen, I guess.

REMAK: When you moved away from Mountain Drive you kept up with everybody?

MACY: Oh, sure.

REMAK: Did you move far?

MACY: We went over to Las Canoas Road. That was about four and a half miles.

REMAK: Someone else you mentioned was Tommy White.[11]

MACY: Yeah. Tommy built the house--I think it's still the one that's the highest in the upper part of the original fifty acre tract that Bobby bought. I think he's not a blood relation to Bobby, but through marriage. Tommy White's father was a brother of the man who married a sister of somebody Bobby had married 00:36:00(laughter)--Bobby's second wife.[12]

REMAK: He was married three times, wasn't he? How many children were there in all?

MACY: Well, Bobby's first wife died shortly after she gave birth to my wife. Then Bobby married Lydia and had three children.

REMAK: Were those the Andrews?

MACY: No, the Andrews were Floppy's children. Before Bobby and Floppy married Floppy had two children by another man, and the older was Oliver and the younger 00:37:00was Joel.

REMAK: Were you in the area at the time of the Coyote fire?[13]

MACY: Oh, yes. Yes. It was dreadful.

REMAK: Now you were not living on Mountain Drive?

MACY: It was in 1964. My sister was living up there at the time. It burned Bill 00:38:00Richardson's house and--gee, I don't remember. I think Bill's was the only one above the Mountain Drive that was destroyed.

REMAK: What about the Hyde's house?

MACY: Of course the Hyde's house was (destroyed). It had to be rebuilt.

REMAK: What was the house like--before the fire?

MACY: When we were first there in 1948 there was just the kitchen and the living room. There was a little breezeway and then a shed which contained the bathroom. 00:39:00They kept the ice by a couple of ice boxes--refrigerators. I think that was all that was there. Then between 1949 and when we got back there in 1951, or shortly thereafter, they built a wing that was next to--that was an extension of--where the shed over where the bathroom and the refrigerator (were). It was an L shape. It added on two rooms and then a large space that went off at an angle. I beg your pardon--in the original structure there was also an L off the living room, 00:40:00but it wasn't enclosed. There was a roof and walls on two sides, but it was not enclosed.

REMAK: Was it an adobe structure?

MACY: Well the original was, the original living room and the kitchen and the structure off the living room was all adobe, but it wasn't finished. And then when it was finished, it was finished with concrete block--cast-on blocks--but not so massive as the ones in our house.

REMAK: How long did you stay in Santa Barbara?

MACY: Let's see. 1974.

REMAK: And you've come back periodically?

MACY: For a couple of weeks at a time.

REMAK: Tell me, what are the biggest changes that have taken place since you first saw Mountain Drive and lived there?

MACY: Well, of course, there are more houses up there. And, of course, as time has gone on and the property values have increased, the more substantial building has gone on in the area. My impression is there is no longer that sense of community that there was back in the fifties and sixties. Some of the people 00:42:00are still there, but my impression--and this is only an impression from a very limited encounter--is that there isn't that same community spirit feeling.

REMAK: I see. Did the people who lived there feel they were participating in an experiment in alternative life-style?

MACY: I don't think it was self-conscious. I think it just happened.

REMAK: Did people take a certain amount of pride in the fact that they lived on Mountain Drive?

MACY: That they were Mountain Drivers? Yeah, I think they did. I think it gave them some identity that gave a special feeling. Now whether it was true of 00:43:00everyone--I think to a degree it was.

REMAK: When people gave parties was it sort of a general invitation for all the neighbors to...?

MACY: Originally I think it was, but as time went on I think it was more selective.

REMAK: Do you think that Mountain Drive as a community had any effect on Santa Barbara?

MACY: It's hard to say. It's certainly formative for the people who lived there.

REMAK: In what way?

MACY: I would say in the way people feel about themselves. I think it's something most people look back on as a very positive influence in their lives.

REMAK: Did people talk about that when you were there. And say, "Gee, it's great we live here because..."

MACY: I don't think it was said quite so blatantly as that. I do think that there was an awareness on the part of a number of people in Santa Barbara that 00:45:00there was this community up there, and it was sort of special. I can't give you specifics, but every now and then when one runs into people who say, "Oh, you're part of that community, are you?" There was an awareness of it.

REMAK: Well certainly when the Pot Wars[14] were celebrated there were a lot of people from the larger Santa Barbara community, weren't there?

MACY: Of course, the word did get around. Friends of people who lived there--yeah, I think it did become kind of. One of the things I thought of that you might look up is a copy--I think a Sunday issue--of the News-Press when Don Freeman[15] did some drawings for the Bookmobile. That 00:46:00was sort of an institution. The Bookmobile would come by on Saturdays--I think it was Saturday it went up there. Somebody who might give you some more information, remember better than I would be Burdette Dunn, who used to run the Bookmobile. I remember there was a nice spread about the Bookmobile ritual, and I remember Don Freeman did a nice drawing, a cartoon drawing of the event.[16]

REMAK: I'll look that up. Were people particularly interested in introducing 00:47:00their children to Santa Barbara's cultural events; the Bookmobile reminded me.

MACY: I'm thinking. I really don't know. I'm guessing that the attitude was rather--the quality of life on the mountain was, well, one that was not 00:48:00contaminated by the worst aspects of the contemporary culture. But I'm sort of guessing. (laughter)

REMAK: That just about finishes the topics I did want to discuss with you. And now I'll ask you the question: are there some things I should have asked you, that you wish I'd asked you that I didn't get around to?

MACY: Well, I jotted down on a piece of paper a few little notes. One year, after a windstorm, I remember that it was just the time when the trees on Olive Street had reached their maturity--millions and millions of olives in the 00:49:00gutters and the sidewalks. I remember Bobby had us all go down, sweep them up and we carried them back to Mountain Drive and we crushed them into I don't know how many gallons of olive oil. I don't know how many gallons we got out of that, but there must have been about a ton of olives we swept up from Olive Street. I remember we couldn't use up the olive oil fast enough and some of it got rancid. But that was one of Bobby's projects. So far as I know, we only did that once. Another thing that might interest you is that one year Merv Lane[17] organized a Christmas carol group, and we got together for a couple of months before Christmas and trained and sang and 00:50:00developed not only the traditional carols but some more interesting carols. I guess Christmas Eve we went around and caroled--just on the mountain. I don't think we went any other places. Then I mentioned how awful it was when it rained. I remember one Christmas the rain really came down buckets, and it shorted out the electricity in the house that was just above the mail boxes. It shorted out the electricity all over the--at least the upper part. I think it 00:51:00was almost twenty-four hours before we got that one straightened out. In relation to rain, I don't know how many years the family had lived there in this house just above the mail boxes, but the man never slept in the house. He always slept in his Jeep. I've forgotten the name; maybe Frank Robinson remembers the name of this character. He was an electrician who worked for Frank.

REMAK: Why did he sleep in his Jeep?

MACY: Don't ask me. (laughter) That was the sort of people we got up there. He was a very nice person, incidentally, very agreeable, nothing strange--except 00:52:00that he slept in his Jeep.

REMAK: Maybe he was afraid of getting caught in the adobe mire. There were hot springs, not in Mountain Drive, but somewhere. I understand that some people from Mountain Drive were instrumental in getting them cleaned up and usable again.

MACY: That's something I didn't know about. I do know that one year we did--I don't know if it was Bobby's truck, a big flatbed--and got some straw, and we went up to the hot springs for a swim one moonlit night.

REMAK: Was the hot tub invented in Mountain Drive?

MACY: I don't think so.

REMAK: But people did have them, though?

MACY: Not hot tubs. Bobby used to have a huge wine--I don't know if it was a wine vat--but it was a big redwood tub about 16 feet across that he used to put water in to about three or four feet. This was before he got the swimming pool in operation. Parties would end up with everybody going swimming--although you couldn't swim because it was only three feet of water. You could get wet--splash around. But no, I don't think there was ever a hot tub up there.[18][19]

REMAK: Did you ever go with Bobby Hyde on those camping trips.

MACY: No, I did not myself. But I've heard tell of them. They were very austere. A slab of bacon, some potatoes and that was about it for food. (laughter)

REMAK: Are there any other stories you would like to tell us?

MACY: I can't think of any other goodies. It was a lot of fun. It was hard keeping warm. We had fireplaces, but wood was scarce. We got a couple of kerosene heaters--the old Perfection burners, and of course they are extremely dangerous because when you start them the flame isn't very big, but you go away 00:55:00and leave them the combustion gets more and more efficient and the flame rises. If it got knocked over you could get a lot of soot in your house. But of course with children there's always the chance of overturning them. Luckily nobody had any accidents.

REMAK: It wasn't the sort of thing you would leave on all night?

MACY: Oh, no. No. Not after you went to bed. It was cold up there. (laughter)

REMAK: Cold and muddy.

MACY: Cold, muddy and miserable.

REMAK: I understand from somebody that part of the fashion of wearing boots came, she thought, from Mountain Drive, because any sensible person in the rainy 00:56:00season wouldn't go into town except with a pair of boots, in order to be able to get home again.

MACY: Sure.

REMAK: Oh, do you remember Tarantula Day?

MACY: No. I remember tarantulas but I don't remember any Tarantula Day. You would see them walking up Coyote Road. A certain time of year you would run across tarantulas. You wouldn't see very many, but now and then you might see one.

REMAK: This has been very kind of you. I'm dying to hear this tape and see if we come out all right. This is the first time I've used this gadget. I hope you'll 00:57:00let us know if you're going to be in Santa Barbara, and maybe we can talk a little more.