“Bill and Pablo Return to Brookside”
by Pablo Capra
PHOTOS FROM 2022-03-11 BY PABLO CAPRA
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| Pablo Capra and Bill Flaxman |
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| Bill Flaxman |
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| Bill Flaxman, "In Case of Emergency, Call..." |
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| A defunct Jacuzzi was home to frogs. |
Having written the book Topanga Beach: A History, I’ve become an expert on the area; but one part I still know
little about is Brookside, a neighborhood just under a mile from the beach, where
about 20 people lived.
On March 11, 2022, Topanga therapist
Bill Flaxman, 79, gave me a tour of this neighborhood that State Parks
demolished in the early 2000s, and has blocked off with yellow gates ever since.
Bill moved to Brookside with his wife Geraldine in 1978. They had a
son there, Adam, and stayed until 1986, when they purchased a home off Highvale
Trail in Topanga.
“Brookside was the most beautiful
place I’ve ever lived,” Bill reflects. “Our house there should have been
preserved. It was like Will Rogers's house, but twice as big.”
He remembers how a flood washed out
the boulevard in 1980, and afterwards their house was the last one that could
be reached by car from PCH… for a whole year!
Bill and I parked on the dirt
shoulder of the boulevard, and ducked under the yellow gate at Brookside Drive.
Immediately, we were knee-deep in brush and pushing our way along paths that only existed in memory.
Bill came prepared with a machete, but what used to be a 20-minute walk turned
into two hours of negotiating every few steps forward in the wilderness.
The clearings we succeeded in
reaching, sheltered under large trees and couched in nasturtiums, were
bulldozed home sites. One still had a Jacuzzi, with frogs swimming in it.
These had been the homes of Wendy
Tahas and actor Robert Colbert (The Time Tunnel), Devon Carter
and Merrick Davidson (Messenger newspaper founder), folksingers George
and Katie Wood (The Special World of George Wood and Katie), Thais Rust
Sykes (contributor of many photos to the Historical Society), painter Laura Way
Mathiesen (whose home was called Marmont Studio), sculptor Arthur “King”
Zimmerman, costumer Dean “Skip” Skipworth (Raging Bull), electrician Bob
Sweeney (who lived in a plywood pyramid), dancer Catherine Holliss, and
the corral of “Princess” (the horse celebrated in Idlers of the Bamboo Grove:Poetry from Lower Topanga).
It was a rare glimpse of a place
once beloved that has been hidden away for decades.
PHOTOS FROM 1984 C/O THE FLAXMAN FAMILY
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| Bill and Adam |
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| Geraldine and Adam |
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| Adam's 2nd birthday party |
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| Moms’ club, Geraldine and Adam on the right |
