He Declared it Paradise!

“Cecil” bounced in his seat as he passed over the uneven, unpaved roads of the northeast San Fernando Valley. He had come across an advertisement for a good-sized tract of land for sale up in Little Tujunga Canyon and he was on his way there to take a look. He had sent his attorney, Neil McCarthy, to head out to the property before him to take a survey so he could convey what he had found when Cecil arrived.

At first in the distance only a cloud of dust was visible. Then a vehicle could be discerned. Cecil recognized it was his attorney only moments before the two ground to a stop alongside each other. 

“Where are you going?” Cecil asked in frustration. “You were supposed to wait for me there.”

“No point,” McCarthy loudly retorted. “You might as well turn around; it’s an impossible place. It’s the wildest, most terrible place I’ve ever seen. It’s all rocky and mountainous and the only access is by way of a narrow canyon.” 

Cecil was more intrigued than dissuaded. 

“Head back to town and buy it,” he replied undaunted. “It’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

The year was 1916 and “Cecil” was Cecil Blount DeMille, better known as Cecil B. DeMille, the famous Hollywood director who, at the time, had 20-plus films to his name. He had been in search of a place where he could get away … away from the city, away from the studio, away from telephones and all the demands of his daily routine. What he wanted was a retreat – and he had found one.

After arriving at the property, DeMille didn’t see a terrible place at all. He declared it paradise! He constructed some cabins, some outbuildings and a small dining hall among the trees but kept the tract much as it was when he first laid eyes on it. These original 300 acres became known as DeMille’s Paradise Ranch and over the years that followed he would acquire additional adjacent properties, increasing the total to an untold number of acres, thereby doubling and then tripling its size.

Much entertaining went on there with the company of a very select few close friends and kindred spirits. Guests like Charlie Chaplin, Jesse Lasky, Mildred Shay, H. G. Wells, Yul Brynner and many other stars and starlets attended parties that are now a part of Hollywood legend.

DeMille claimed later in life that Paradise Ranch kept him alive. He allowed no shooting there with either gun or camera. The place was a sanctuary for animals as well as for DeMille and his guests. Deer, fox, the occasional mountain lion and all the small secret creatures of the California forest seemed to know they were safe there.

DeMille once explained that it took him more than 30 years to convince the deer at the ranch that the un-antlered, hairless biped who came there on weekends was their friend. Eventually they began to eat from his hand. In addition, he shared that a fox would take breakfast with him each morning on his porch.

Cecil B. DeMille would own Paradise Ranch until his death in 1959. In 1963, the DeMille Trust bequeathed the property and it became the Hathaway Children’s Village, a residential facility for troubled children. In 2010, Hallelujah Prayer Center took over the facility and named it the Gold Creek Center, which runs as a camp, retreat and recreation center and holds worship services.

In DeMille’s autobiography, he proclaimed, “When one is close to the elements of earth and wood and water and the creatures whose lives pulse with nature’s own rhythm, you can draw upon resources that are literally life-giving. But for Paradise Ranch, I would most certainly be in the other one by now, but I do not expect it to seem altogether strange for I have had a little foretaste of it here on Earth.”