Progress on Deukmejian Park’s Stone Barn – Our Newest Community Building

Deukmejian Wilderness Park, situated in Dunsmore Canyon at the base of the magnificent San Gabriel Mountains, is an extremely popular park. Any weekend will find its two parking lots filled to capacity from hundreds of hikers who use the trails heading up into the wilderness. As well, it’s become a focus of outdoor education, with a regular rotation of active “hiking lectures” on geology, plants, birds and animals that inhabit out beautiful mountains. It is the “jewel in the crown” of Glendale’s system of parks.

However, for the park’s almost 30 years of existence, the massive two-story stone barn at the park’s center has sat empty. The 100-year-old historic structure was always envisioned as a nature center/community building, but the complicated wheels of funding for the project never got traction. Until now!

Thanks to pressure from the community, the Glendale City Council recently approved the last allocation of money that will allow for the barn’s completion and opening. Since then progress on the barn’s interior has been swift and dramatic. Wiring conduits snake through trenches, and forms are in place for a massive concrete pour that will form the floor of the cavernous space. The City is about to choose the design team to complete the “soft” portions of the interior allowing it to become a functioning interpretive center and meeting hall.

These upgrades will include expanded restrooms, a docent center where maps and information can be given out, along with a small sales stand for history or nature books and other nature-related gift items, and upward lighting that will show off the complex arched wooden trusses of the ceiling high above. Interpretive panels will tell the natural and human history of the land the park is on. For example, the panels might show the earthquake faults that cross the park and tell of Dunsmore Creek next to the barn that every century or so becomes an angry man-killing torrent of mud and rocks. They’ll show the delicate interplay of the trees, plants and animals that call the park home and the fires that, although destructive, are a natural part of the park’s ecology. The history of the French Le Mesnager family will be given, from their purchase of the land in the mid-1880s to the planting of vineyards for winemaking to the building of the stone barn in the ’teens, all the way up to the community’s fight to save the park from development in the 1980s. The panels, along with perhaps displays of historic winemaking equipment, will be on wheels, so that they can be rolled to the side to accommodate seating for 80 to 100 people. Nature lectures, history presentations, civic and community meetings will all take place in the cool, stone-lined interior.

Items on the wish list for future additions to the barn include:

• Expanding the south-facing patio that overlooks the newly expanded working vineyard.

• An area outside with a snack bar.

• Office space for the park staff, docents and volunteers that will maintain the park and assist visitors.

• An additional parking lot.

I have been critical of Glendale’s leadership in the past regarding park development, but to them now I give an enthusiastic “Thank you!” With a budget currently adequate for this project and the leadership of Glendale emphatically on board, the barn looks to be open in less than two years. This will be a wonderful new addition to our community. Imagine stopping in at the nature center before a hike and learning about the history of the land, finding out the names of the plants you’ll be passing, or hearing about a trail you’ve never been on. Picture attending a class on winemaking within the stone walls of this century-old winery. Imagine field trips to the nature center from Glendale schools, enlightening our next generation on the natural treasures we have in our own backyard. The opening of the stone barn will be a boon to the people of Glendale, to this generation and the ones to follow, and will increase the quality of all our lives.