Bernie’s ex-Topanga Canyon Home for Sale

[Delilah]

This was the home he shared with Patti Davis back in the day. In one of the pics you can see his old surfboard. LOL, jk I have no idea about the surfboard. The house was also Neil Young’s home in the late 60s. I wonder if any Borderers got to see this on their Eagles excursions.

“Neil Young's Topanga Canyon Muse Listed For $1.8 Million” by Paige Austin, patch.com, May 17, 2018

[peneumbra]

To Delilah -

Yes, been in this house many times. In many, uh, "altered states of mind."

Used to have flooding issues, so if anybody here is looking to make an offer, you might want to check and see if that's been fixed.

Speaking of which: One night in the early '70s, myself and several other questionable individuals were driving up to the pad when we came to a fast-flowing river running across the road. Apparently a water line running alongside the road had broken.

You will recall the "altered states" comment. Well, this was one of those nights (hey, catchy song title!) when all four of us had had a snootful of one thing or another, and, in our "excitement," decided to cross the raging torrent. And, I mean, this mother was at least three feet high and moving at 25 miles an hour. Or so it seemed.

A plan was developed. The first guy across would carry with him a rope, which he would affix to a large tree a few feet beyond the water. Then, the rest of us, one by one, would firmly grasp the rope and safely make our way across.

Of course, this concept didn't do much for Crosser Number One, who had to get to dry ground in some other (and likely more dangerous) fashion. But how to select the first one?

We could have drawn straws: the one straw we'd had with us had already been conveniently cut into several pieces, for "research purposes." But we'd cleverly disposed of it when we left The Corral, lest we be stopped by The Man, and charged with possession of narcotics paraphernalia. So that was out.

Then one of us, this well-known lead guitar player - never mind his name - volunteered. Sort of.

"Ah, F--k this!" he said, adding, "this is F--king ridiculous!" To which I replied, "Thanks, man. Thanks for going first." I could see him beginning to voice an outraged reply, but before he could get the words out, I'd handed him the rope and, grasping him firmly on the shoulders, said, "I KNOW you can get this done." He knew he was stuck; he just nodded and turned to face his fate.

Have you ever seen the old film "River Of No Return?" The climactic scene, filmed in wide-screen Technicolor, features an actor (I think it was Robert Mitchum) attempting to swim across this humungous swollen Montana river, in order to rescue Marilyn Monroe. The river was full of boulders and logs and maybe an old Buick or two…

And, in our befuddlement, the water pipe flow we were facing looked maybe just a tad less lethal. Our brave guitarist/explorer didn't do much to make us feel better - he tried to step into the stream at road's edge, but immediately fell face down into the water and was swept to the middle of the street. He wasn't going to be washed away; he had a death grip on the rope and had a determined (and terrified) look on his face. Slowly, step by step, he fought the tide and after what seemed like an hour, gained purchase on the opposite bank, where he staggered out and tied the rope to the nearby tree.

Then, it was my turn. "Why me?" I sniveled. "Because you're the roadie and no one's gonna miss you," explained the smart-ass drummer. "Anyway, this whole thing was YOUR idea."

I couldn't argue with that, given that my mouth was utterly numb and could barely form words. So I grasped onto the rope, stood up tall, and prepared to cross the tide. "C'mon, you can do it!" yelled a now confident Guy Number One, who had the benefit of standing on solid ground. It was Now or Never.

It turned out to be Never. One second I was Robert Mitchum, grimly preparing to cross the River Of No Return, but then, I looked down, and the water was…

Gone. No more river, just a few inches' deep puddle. Just as I was preparing to cross this deadly wall of water, the water company had closed the valve to the broken pipe. Simple as that.

We were all pretty happy about this development, except for our Brave Guitar Slinger.

"What?!? I did all that s--t for nothing? I could've got killed, fer Chrissakes! I'm f--king freezing to death!" He was throughly soaked, and the night was turning cold.

We got him in the car and up to the house, where he dried off and, still grumbling, went to sit in front of the wood stove, where we'd built a handsome fire. The last thing I remember that night, as I drifted off to sleep next to a certain young lady, was a vision of Robert Mitchum, struggling through the biggest, meanest river on earth.

"I'm gonna save Marilyn Monroe," I mumbled.

"Sorry, baby, but she's already dead," my companion said.

"But you can save me anytime."

[East Texas Girl]

Love the pictures and the view is marvelous! Thanks Delilah for sharing.

peneumbra, your stories never cease to amaze me and bring a good laugh.

[NightMistBlue]

I hope this isn’t the haunted house. If you’ve read Pattie’s memoirs, they lived in several different houses together. There was bad mojo in one.

[Delilah]

Peneumbra- Thanks for the amusing story. It’s cool you have memories of being at the house.

ETG- I agree the views are amazing.

NMB- from what I’ve read about it (which isn’t a whole lot), this house isn’t known to be haunted. It would be interesting to know which house was though.

Here’s what Neil Young said about leaving the house. He doesn’t mention anything about it be haunted (not that he necessarily would).

Unfortunately, two casualties of the sessions were Young’s marriage to Susan Acevodo and their idyll in Topanga. “I eventually got out of that house because I couldn’t handle the people who kept coming up all the time,” Young later told Cameron Crowe. “There was too much going on. I had too many fucking people hanging around who really don’t know me. They were parasites whether they intended to be or not. They used my money to buy things, used my telephone to make their calls. It hurt my feelings when I reached that realization.”

“Neil Young’s Imaginary Western—The United Sounds of Los Angeles #14: A Canadian folk rocker preserves the sound of Topanga Canyon in the ’70s” by Matthew Duersten, Los Angeles Magazine, Sept. 26, 2014

[NightMistBlue]

peneumbra, you hung out at the legendary Topanga Corral?! It was said Jim Morrison wrote "Roadhouse Blues" about that place. Did you by any chance see Mr. Morrison there, or at the Troubadour?

[peneumbra]

Good morning!

OK, well, good afternoon - if you insist.

I never saw Morrison at The Corral. Saw a lot of other L.A. musicians there - pretty much everyone in the scene ended up there at one point or another. On the weekends, it was a zoo because people from all over L.A. would show up, but on weeknights, the crowd was mostly locals.

I was spending a good deal of my free time hanging out with Sandy Richmond, the very fetching young lady who lived in a gypsy wagon up a dirt road behind The Corral. She had a female African lion cub as a pet.

It wasn't exactly a normal suburban neighborhood...

[LuvTim]

P, I love to read your posts. They bring to life my dreams of what life must have been like in the music scene from those days. I was too young* to be a part of that whole scene, and it makes me sad that I missed it. (Plus, my family lived on the southern half of the East coast, so...)

Anyway, thanks for your entertaining posts!


*Just as a point of reference, I clearly remember lying on my back on my kid-sized bed, feet high up on the wall (yeah, my mom always yelled at me to get my feet off the wall!) listening to the local radio station on the transistor radio. They were broadcasting some of the details from Woodstock, then playing some of the tunes that the crowd might be hearing there. I was all of 9 years old. LOL! (I had older cousins who had "corrupted" me with the rock n'roll, already!)

I'm going to go to LA and the surrounding area some day to check it out. It's on my bucket list. I'd love to see the area in the canyons, etc.!

[lukerichmond]

That's awesome. Sandy is my favorite aunt, please message me, I'd love to hear any stories you have about her, or my parents (her sister Evie, and my dad John Gottlieb, who I think was known as Kemo)

Good morning!

OK, well, good afternoon - if you insist.

I never saw Morrison at The Corral. Saw a lot of other L.A. musicians there - pretty much everyone in the scene ended up there at one point or another. On the weekends, it was a zoo because people from all over L.A. would show up, but on weeknights, the crowd was mostly locals.

I was spending a good deal of my free time hanging out with Sandy Richmond, the very fetching young lady who lived in a gypsy wagon up a dirt road behind The Corral. She had a female African lion cub as a pet.

It wasn't exactly a normal suburban neighborhood...

[NightMistBlue]

Hi Luke,
Mr. Peneumbra is no longer a visitor to these forums, but maybe someone has his email address or other contact info?