Paramount Ranch
Santa Monica Mountains
November 11, 2018
Once again Santa Ana winds are driving devastating wildfires in California. The Woolsey Fire started in Thousand Oaks, jumped the 101, and spread south and east, all the way to Malibu and West Hills. Meredith’s alma mater, Taft High School in Woodland Hills, is being used as an evacuation center. Friday brought the news that a place we had been with Margaret — Paramount Ranch’s Western Town, in the Santa Monica Mountain Nature Reserve — was destroyed.
Many films and television shows have been filmed in the area from the 1920’s on, not only on the Paramount Ranch property but also in nearby areas once owned by other studios. Films shot at least in part on the Paramount Ranch included numerous Westerns, especially in the 1920’s and 30’s, the Marx Brothers’ Horse Feathers (1932), Beau Geste (1939), The Love Bug (1968) and its sequels, and more recently American Sniper (2014). The Western Town part of the ranch included about 20 wooden structures built as a movie set in the 1950’s. That set was used for various productions for several decades, including the current HBO series Westworld and the television show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman in the 1990’s.
We took Meredith’s mother Margaret there in 2015. It was a little challenging pushing her wheelchair on the uneven ground, but fun to walk through the “town” and see the set buildings up close. Our earlier post can be seen here.
The destruction of some movie sets, however historic, is trivial compared to the loss of lives and homes, still to be tallied up, but it makes the fire’s effect more real somehow, to know that a place we visited has been obliterated.
