The Fall of Cascades

THE FALL
OF
CASCADES

In rememberance of the fathers of the aqueduct
for only taking what they could from the small
farming community of Owens Valley, and creating
a green and growing Los Angeles that would
otherwise not naturally exist.

Book Design and Documentation by Miller Klitsner

“So... you finally found your way in here, huh?”
An old hiker came up to me as I photographed
the sign post at the top of the hill. I had seen
him earlier in the morning when I was wandering
around the condos. I told him about my research
on the aqueduct, which wasn’t much, and that I
was a student. He nodded and looked over to
the hillside where the aqueduct’s terminus was
and said something about the spillway being dry.
But they would be sending water over it in the
next few days.
“Do you live here?”
He told me he was just visiting his sister,
and that he was an ex marine from Louisiana. He
hiked through here when he had the chance, and
would make a point to walk down to the end of
each path, one of which we were standing at. He
was making his turn as we talked.

I’m not sure how it came up at this point, but I
think I made some comment about the strange
nature of the concrete paths and their bulbous,
cul-de-sac ends.
“It was a golf course. The place went bankrupt and
the owners ditched it”
I looked down at the end we were standing in as
he walked back down the hill.
I think he said “I’m going this way” or “I’m gonna
go on around this bend” with a “welp” preceding.
He put his hand up in a casual bid of farewell as
he walked away.

After two emails, I was on the phone with the
designer of the course. I had thought about
talking to golfers who had used it in the past,
or residents of the surrounding area. But
someone who had a personal attachment to the
place’s history and its ultimate failure became
more personal than any statements I got from
its patrons. The story he told of its downfall
sat comfortably alongside a larger narrative of
collusion, land seizure, and unsustainability that
had lead to the creation of the aqueduct around
which the former golf course decayed.
This is how I ended up talking to Steve Timm. He
was the original designer of the course and all
its iterations. After he sent me his topographical
models, the course became recognizable. I began
a hunt for subtle indentations that revealed
sand traps, the flat green, the fairways. With the
help of Steve’s map, I started to gain the eye
of a naturalist spotting geographical phenomena,
identifying and cataloging what was still left
after the bankruptcy.

a
CONVERSATION
WITH
STEVE TIMM

original course layout,
1999

PART
ONE

STEVE:
At the time back in the 90s, there was a big push to build golf
in southern California, especially in Los Angeles. There was
a number of studies done by a national golf magazine, that the
baby boomer generation was in the retirement stages and they
were gonna come to golf like fish to water, and that we would
need to build a golf course a day for 10 years in the country
to meet the demand of the baby boomers.
So, the push was on in southern California. I actually built
another golf course at that exact same time called Tierra
Rejada golf club out in Moorpark. In that window of time it
was crazy.
But anyway, The owners of the property, Tom Clark and his
partner, David Hulihee, decided “hey, we’re gonna build a
golf course” and at the time, you could actually get a bank
to lend on construction for golf... that it was gonna be like
shooting fish in a barrel, you build the golf course, they show
up and you make lots of money— that was the theory anyway.
So we went ahead and took on the task of studying the land, the
topography, routing the golf course, and then re-contouring
redrawing the contours to do the necessary cuts and fills and
shaping of the dirt to then accommodate drainage, irrigation,
and 18 holes of golf with a club house.
“It was gonna be
like shooting
fish in a barrel,
you build
the golf course,
they show up
and you make lots
of money— that was
the theory anyway.”

fairway, holes 7 and 8

sand trap, hole 9

sand trap, hole 9

We started construction ‘97, opened the doors for golf in
December of 1999. At that time, as I told you, there was a big
push in southern California, and in particular Los Angeles,
on the north side of LA, to build high-end, daily-fee golf—
which is what Cascades was.
The banks, Bank of America and Nation’s Credit, were out
there giving loans to people to build golf courses based
on projected revenues. There was a formula that they put
together in a feasibility study that we first contracted for
Cascades and then my other clients who basically said that
if you built ‘em in this area the market would support you
seeing 65,000 rounds a year, a weighted average of 85
dollars a round, and that they could, based on those net
operating estimated revenues, they would loan up to 80% of
the construction costs to build those golf courses.

sand trap, hole 7

sand trap, hole 8

“Well everybody
jumped the gun,
everybody tried to
jump in and get
it done as soon as
possible, diluted the
market to a point
that nobody could
even come close to
their net revenues.”
The problem was Nation’s Credit and ERA associates did a
feasibility analysis for not only Cascades and my other golf
course Tierra Rejada, but at the same time, TPC Valencia,
Rustic Canyon, Lost canyons—36 holes, Robinson Ranch up
in Santa Clarita— 36 holes, they all went under construction
at the same time using the same feasibility analysis. And
they just copied the analysis and put a thing at the bottom
in small print that these estimates assume that not all these
golf courses are gonna get built...Well everybody jumped
the gun, everybody tried to jump in and get it done as soon
as possible, diluted the market to a point that nobody could
even come close to their net revenues.
Consequently, my golf course in Moorpark,Tierra Rejada
golf course, went into bankruptcy in 2005. Robinson Ranch
might as well be dead now, their wells went dry and they’re so
broke they can’t pay attention, and its just been a complete,
utter disaster economically for all these golf courses that got
built, Cascades being one of them.

hole 7 (left side of path), fairway of hole 4 (right side of path)

PART
TWO

water hazard, hole 7

“Steve, I got
good news
and I got
bad news.”
Tom Clark, after the golf course had been opened for 5 years,
called me and said:
“Steve, I got good news and I got bad news.”
I said “well give me the bad news first, and get that behind us”
He says “Well, the golf course is losing money, we’re not
making any money, my partner wants out, he wants his money
out of this thing and to get out, we’re gonna tear up the golf
course and build homes on it.”
I said “Oh shit..” and this is one of my first golf courses I’d
designed so I’m thinking “Oh my god, finally get one in the
ground, get in the accolades and the recognition, nationally,
for design work, and he’s gonna tear it up!”
However, the cascades had one thing that none of these
other golf courses had. And that was underlying zoning—a
repurpose of the land should the golf course not work. In
the case of my other golf course, Tierra Rejada, they had no
zoning, they had no sewer systems out there, so they couldn’t
build anything except golf. So my client then came to me,
So well, I say, “Ok, what’s the good news?”
He says “Well, we’re gonna make a deal with KB Homes and
build condos, 900 doors, and we’re still gonna build a golf
course, we’re gonna redevelop the golf course in and around
900 door condos and you get to do the new master plan and
the golf course.”

2006 layout

2007 layout

So, I ended up redoing that golf course! Redrawing it, putting
golf holes in canyons, rerouting, shortening holes to open up
development for the property. We went through—ah,made the
deal with KB Homes, on the west end—built I guess about 150
doors, and had rebuilt about 10 holes of golf.
When in December, from 2008 as we were in the midst of
doing that, and building the golf course, and building the
homes, a fire came over the mountain, rolled down that
mountain on the backside of the golf course, took out 500
homes next to the golf course, rolled over the golf course
and melted everything to the ground except the homes that
had been built, because they were being protected by the fire
department.
“As we were in the
midst of building the
homes and the golf
course, a fire came
over the mountain,
rolled over the golf
course and melted
everything to the
ground except the
homes that had been
built...”

post-fire, hole 7

pre-fire 2008, hole 5

post-fire 2008, hole 5

So of course we know what happened then... The economic
crash of 2008-2009 rendered the golf business a fatal blow.
The construction loan on the golf course and the remaining
development with Comerica Bank was pulled... And the
golf course never opened again... I then went in after the
fire had gone in for the insurance company and forensically
identified the dollar loss of the construction—because there’s
insurance—they paid about 1.5 million dollars in losses to the
client only to have my billing of about 85,000 dollars in fees
consumed by the bankruptcy and they took the money—the
bank did— and its been dust ever since.

water hazard, hole 7

PART
THREE

view of aqueduct from tee, hole 5

“Hey mister golf course owner, you’ve got lots
of money, guess what, we’re gonna raise your
water rates by a hundred percent!”
Of course, the crash did two things to the golf business:
First off, the golf business endured an overnight loss
upwards of 40 to 50 percent of their revenue. People just
quit playing golf! I mean you need two things to play golf,
Time and Money. At the same time, a year later, because of all
this debacle of the crash, the cities are going broke. So what
do they do? They go to the golf course owners—
“Hey mister golf course owner, you’ve got lots of money,
guess what, we’re gonna raise your water rates by a hundred
percent!”
So everybody’s now scrambling around trying to figure out
how to even keep the doors open, cause, they’re, you know...
you go into the business of golf courses to make money like
any retail business would be, and if you’re not, sooner or
later, you know? You gotta say uncle!
So, a lot of them went bankrupt, a lot of golf courses have
been up for sale. The problem is, the banks know that they’ve
gotta renegotiate their loans with these guys because most of
them, with the exception of Cascades, have no other way of
generating a value of the land
So the golf course owners, or golf course buyers out there
that have been kind of bottom feeding on these golf courses
are telling all of them:
“Hey, we’ll buy your golf course, but we’re only willing to pay
you 10 times your Net Operating Income.”

green, hole 6

What happens if, if five years of NOI’s say “You’re makin’
Zero?”... what’s 10 times of zero? (chuckles) Yea, its zero!
And they’ve spent 17, 18 million dollars building these
places!
MILLER:
Wow, yea it’s just interesting to hear about how this one
situation actually reflected what was going on at a really
large scale in the country during that time.
STEVE:
Yes, yea. The Cascades was certainly not immune to the
economic downturn in question. But the race to build was an
illusion that brought all these outside people into it. When
you have other development companies who are not in the
golf business deciding they’re gonna get in the golf business
because... they play golf... I’ll tell you what, you’ve got a
recipe for disaster!

“They were golfers and
they got immersed in
the—mm, I don’t know
what you wanna call it...
the illusion of being a
golf course owner,
so they can tell
their friends ‘Yea,
I own a Golf course’...
It was ego! Ego was
driving all of this with
these people!”
A lot of my clients were—Well, there were a lot of wealthy
business owners who played a lot of golf—many of them
belonged to exclusive country clubs. I mean, very wealthy
guys...and they played golf! They were golfers and they got
immersed in the —mm, I don’t know what you wanna call it...
the illusion of being a golf course owner, so they can tell
their friends ‘Yea I own a Golf course’... It was ego! Ego
was driving all of this with these people! And golf business
is a hard business, you know? You gotta fight every day for
people to come out and spend money and... you gotta be able
to maintain a golf course! It’s not an easy business... and
they thought it was...
So a lot of stupid money went after the golf business in those
days, and it all went up in smoke for them— for most of them,
anyway.

green, hole 7

green, hole 9

close-up of green, hole 9

fairway, hole 8

“...And more
importantly, Miller,
the banks were willing
to lend money on it!
I don’t know,
it was almost
like there was
collusion going on.
It was kind of like
the run-up of the
real estate market...”
MILLER:
It seems like this whole gold rush for golf courses happened
all because of this one formula that the ERA put together...
STEVE:
Right, and more importantly, Miller, the banks were willing
to lend money on it! I don’t know, it was almost like there was
collusion going on. It was kind of like the run-up of the real
estate market—where the lenders, and the appraisers, and the
real estate agents, in my view, were in collusion for years...
Running up values of property and “wink-wink nod-nod, hey
mister appraiser, I need an appraisal on that property for
800 thousand dollars”...and knowing its only worth 600.
And their doing it because they’re getting paid to do it! And
no one was looking anywhere.... They’re the ones who really
caused the real estate crash... it was the greediness of the
lenders, the real estate agents, and the appraisers and that
incestuous nature of the business, in which they actually
created the crash.

The
19th
Hole

After each morning of shooting at Cascades, I made
a habit of going to a breakfast place called The 19th
Hole at El Cariso Golf Club, a five minute drive from
Cascades. Every time the place seemed completely
abandoned and devoid of life, excepting the MLB
network movie playing on the TV (a Babe Ruth biopic
on the first day, Rookie of The Year on the second).
I waited about 20 minutes before being served, not
by the staff but by a disgruntled customer who went
behind the counter and poured us both a cup of coffee.
I later talked to a few of the golfers in a charity
tournament that was happening during my second
visit. One of them asked if I was a caddy. Another was
an ex marine, but “not a jar head” because he was in
the navy.
They all called Cascades a “Billy goat course” in
reference to the difficulty posed by its hills. Most
of them seemed to enjoy the flatness and ease of El
Cariso over anything else.

Opening Day Celebration of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, Novermber 5, 1913
DWP - LA Public Library Image Archive

“The construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct effectively eliminated Owens
Valley as a viable farming community and eventually devastated the Owens Lake
ecosystem. A group known as the ‘San Fernando Syndicate’–including Fred Eaton,
Mulholland, local developer Henry Huntington, Harrison Otis (the publisher of
The Los Angeles Times), and a group of wealthy businessmen–were a group of
investors who bought land in the San Fernando Valley based on inside knowledge
that the Los Angeles aqueduct would soon irrigate it. The former three of
these men were heralded as the ‘fathers of the aqueduct’ . Although there is
disagreement over the actions of the ‘syndicate’ as to whether they were a
‘diabolical’ cabal or only a group that united the Los Angeles business community
behind supporting the aqueduct, Eaton, Mulholland and others connected with
the project have long been accused of using deceptive tactics and underhanded
methods to obtain water rights and block the Bureau of Reclamation from
building water infrastructure for the residents in Owens Valley.”
—Karen Piper, Left in the Dust