How the Cobb Estate Got Saved

By his own admission, Bob Barnes barely knew a thing about the Cobb Estate just two weeks short of when he and his students would be responsible for saving it from becoming a tract housing development.

The year was 1971, and the Cobb Estate, which we know today as the National Forest-run area at the top of Lake Avenue, was still in private ownership (owned, in fact, by the family of Groucho Marx).

The Marx family had purchased the 107-acre tree-lined mountain lot from the original owners, but it had long since become an open space area - the county tore down the home on the estate in the 1950s after the building deteriorated and became unsafe.

The Marx family was finally ready to sell it and has posted notice that there would be an auction, which would no doubt mean local real estate developers would be lining up to bid.

Barnes, who addressed a crowded room at an Altadena Historical Society on Monday in honor of the upcoming 40-year-anniversary of the preservation of the area, would go from knowing little about the area to leading a successful campaign that culminated in the people of Altadena outbidding all developers and purchasing the land for $175,000.  Today, it is part of the Angeles National Forest, and cannot be developed.

The way Barnes tells it, shortly after he agreed to fill in as an advisor to a student group concerned with open space issues, he was more or less dragged to a meeting on the Cobb Estate auction by a bright and idealistic John Muir senior named Maggie Stratton, who quickly decided they would take up the cause.

"She said, 'Barnes we will do this!'" Barnes told the room on Monday night.  And that was it- for the next week he and his students launched into a last minute campaign to save the area from development.

During that time Barnes said, he took his cues from Stratton, whose energy and vision began a very rare youth campaign that ultimately resulted in hundreds of people, many of them students, who marched to the Cobb Estate to demonstrate that the people of Altadena wanted to keep the area wild.

That meant getting the word out, and Barnes' students used their talents to do it- they made cartoons, posters, and artwork, and posted them at area schools, including Pasadena City College, and they got people interested in the cause (some of the art can be viewed at right). 

They scheduled a walk/bike event from PCC all the way to the top of Lake the day before the auction to show their dedication to the cause.

Monday night ended up being a reunion of sorts for Barnes as well.  After his speech, Jane Brackman of the historical society asked the attendees of the meeting who were at the auction to identify themselves: about 10-15 did so, and one woman stood up and blurted out: "I was there... and I'm Maggie Stratton!"

Stratton, who now lives in Santa Barbara, had received word of the lecture from a friend.  Barnes, who had lost touch with her, had no idea she was in the audience for the duration of the speech.

She told Altadena Patch that Barnes described the events much as she remembered it.

"It's amazing how fast the whole thing came together," Stratton said.

Despite all the students hard work in the week before the auction in 1971, there did not a lot of optimism that the task could be accomplished, according to Barnes' story.

That is until the night before the auction where a single phone call changed the group's fortunes.

The group had completed the walking and biking parade to the Cobb Estate the night before the auction and were demonstrating and working on attracting as much media attention as possible.

In the middle of this, Barnes said, Stratton insisted on taking a break to make a call home to check on her sisters - her parents had gone out to a party, and they were staying at home.

When she called, her sister told her their mother had called, telling her that at the party the Cobb Estate cause had become a popular point of discussion.  One woman in particular was very interested, Barnes said.

So Barnes and Stratton drove down to the party, which was at Caltech, and were ultimately directed to the lavish home of Virginia Steele Scott, a long-time Pasadena resident and philanthropist who had been speaking with the Stratton's mother about saving the Cobb Estate.

They ended up staying until almost 2 a.m. talking with Scott about everything from the mountains, to Scott's artwork, to her cats, Barnes said, who described Scott quite frankly as "eccentric."

By the end of the night, Barnes said he was not so certain she had any serious interest in the estate, until she suddenly asked him what they would do with the land if they bought it, and how much money they would need.

"Perhaps it would because I was totally exhausted, or because I felt some sense of righteous entitlement - I'm not sure- but I said $150,000," Barnes said.  "And she said 'OK.'"

The one concern Scott did have, Barnes said, is that the young and long-haired crowd looking to buy the estate would turn it into one of those "love-in places."

The next day at the auction Barnes and Stratton had to keep to themselves the knowledge that Scott would be bidding - the rest of the students and community members supporting the cause looked glum and saw no way they would persevere, he said.

And despite the help from Scott, they almost did not.  As promised, Mrs. Scott bid $150,000, only to be quickly outbid by a Realtor named Dirk Feenstra who offered $170,000.

At this point, the auctioneer gave Barnes and Stratton a break to see if they could come up with the money to beat that bid.  Miraculously, in a matter of minutes they were able to get promises for another $25,000 from people and organizations in the crowd.

It still would not have been enough, Barnes said, if not for a change of heart from Feenstra - after the $175,000 bid, there was a brief silence as everyone waited to see if he would outbid the peoples' bid.  And instead they heard:

"I will bid no more.  I too am one of the people."

Feenstra later told Barnes he had been prepared to bid up to $300,000 for the estate.

In total, Barnes and Stratton got more than 4,500 signatures in about a week to save the area.  Based on estimates at the time, likely somewhere between 600 and 1,000 people showed up to the auction to support the cause, Barnes said.

The local media was also instrumental, he said.  One Pasadena Star News columnist wrote about the issue repeatedly and helped spread the word, though the editor of the local Altadena paper at the time appeared to be more concerned that residents' gardens and other property would be damaged by unruly students, according to Barnes.

But ultimately, it was the energy of the youth that made the difference.  In Barnes' words:

"Those kids, all of them, at each of the events, were magnificent."