Thanks to Nick Welsh (yet again) and Adri Davies for sharing the important story of Horace McMillan , a man who dared to make a difference in Santa Barbara, when the forces of prejudice were in a much stronger position than they are today. I am chagrined by my ignorance of this amazing man. At the same time, the piece is timely as America has come to appreciate that the image of our country as post-racial is delusional.
I was particularly interested in Nick’s comments about Eric Lyons.
For a number of years, I was a salesman in the office of Lyons-Ambriz Realty,
comprised of Eric and his partner Joe Ambriz. They were definitely the blue-collar
real estate firm, often taking a very proactive role in their work. They bought
many low-cost houses in some of the more modest local neighborhoods, fixed them
up doing much of the labor themselves, and worked to make them available to low-
and moderate-income families of all colors.
I actually learned about Eric before I met him, through my late
friend Katy Peake. She told me the story Nick related about Eric being kicked
out of the local board of realtors. A native of Canada, Eric was not familiar
with possible remedies for his predicament. Reading about his situation, Katy
contacted him and introduced him to the local chapter of the ACLU, who
represented him in successfully gaining reinstatement as a local realtor. Katy
and Eric developed a close relationship through the rest of their lives, which
included Eric’s daughter, Madeline, attending the Santa Barbara Community
School, founded by Katy and other members of her family.
More to the point, Kary and her sister, Helen Pedotti, joined
forces with Eric as straw buyers, buying homes in their own names and then
reselling them to minority buyers who would have been denied in attempting to
make the original purchase. Not surprisingly, Katy delighted in circumventing
the local forces of racism and exclusion.
It warmed my heart to see Eric acknowledged for his chutzpah and
integrity at a time when it incurred real risk for him.
A couple of sidebars: In the mid-70s, I accompanied a friend as she looked for an apartment in town. At one of the apartments there was already an interracial couple looking, announcing their intention to rent the unit. When we returned to the realtor’s office, we told him we wouldn’t being pursuing that apartment, since the other couple said they planned to rent it. The realtor gave us a sly smile and said, “That apartment’s not rented.”
Second, Kary and Helen’s brother, Herman Schott, was an important
player in the development of a visionary housing development in Brentwood in
the late 1940s, Crestwood Hills. Wikipedia summarizes the project like this: “Crestwood Hills began as a utopian experiment in the late
1940s by a few musicians, and eventually turned into a cooperative association
that included 400 members.” Following the war, there were a number of plans
created for similar progressive housing developments, many of which never quite
reached fruition. Crestwood was an exemplary exception using simple, affordable
designs from prominent midcentury architects. It included a preschool, park,
and stable, where Herman’s son Max developed his abilities as a skilled rodeo
rider, who performed in later years in the Fiesta Rodeo. Max also worked
raising quarter horses with his wife, Stevie, on the Buellton ranch owned by
Katy and Channing Peake.
This all took place when covenants
and deed restrictions excluding minorities and other outsider groups were
common and legally recognized. Herman lived on the outskirts of what would
become Crestwood Hills, and chatted about it one day with his neighbor, Mrs.
Henry Fonda. She expressed satisfaction that the new homes would be protected
by such deed restrictions. Herman brought the conversation to a quick
conclusion by noting that the Crestwood Hills association was actively working
to defeat those same exclusions.