Criss-Cross Brown Sugar Cookies

their 80-acre parcel was reduced to the 12 acres that held their family homes. But our land in lower Hondo Canyon seemed temporarily safe, as the State turned its eyes toward Red Rock. The problem there was access. Property owners along Red Rock Road resisted granting easements across their private land. To appease their outrage, the government promised to build a parking lot on the Stunt Road side of the park, allowing visitors to reach the park from the firebreak road, known today as Calabasas Parkway.

Meanwhile, in 1980, Red Rock Canyon’s Boy Scout camp closed. The State took over that property under the auspices of the recently formed Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, and Red Rock Park at last had an entrance. The promised parking lot off Stunt Road never happened. (To this day, most car access to the park goes through Red Rock Road, and visitors have the mistaken impression that once they have turned onto Red Rock Road, they are within the park boundaries.)

In 1980, I was busy building my career as a psychologist and raising my two daughters. After the government backed away from taking our Hondo Canyon property, I didn’t have much time to think about park land. The Topanga Association for a Scenic Community (TASC) had been formed and its members were doing a great job of warding off developers. (The developers included the daughter of Walt Disney, who wanted to build a golf course and homes in Summit Valley just off Highway 27. What is now Edelman Park preserves the natural heritage of that valley and protects indigenous peoples’ cave paintings.)

Eventually, I started to think about building up on the forty acres. There were several owners of forty-acre parcels at the top of Red Rock, most of whom had owned their property for a half-century and now wanted to build. I had my father design and render a house for me. It would take time and money to make it happen, but the surrounding area now had access to electricity and water.

Slowly but surely, however, the Conservancy claimed everything around those parcels. We were landlocked, and when we complained, the State