Here are photos of Grandfather's [ LD Waller ] cabins just off  Paradise Road in the upper Santa Ynez River Canyon, sold during WWII. LD would take customers from back east to the cabin for Santa Maria Style Barbecue, beer and fishing. These photos were taken around 1934-36. It appears that Grandfather owned two cabins next to each other, perhaps one for family the other for guests, they were purchased after the 1932 Olympics where they had been used as athlete housing in Baldwin Park and moved to the river.  The cabins still stand, and are beautiful cabins, still.

I can picture my father in the war in the cold and the mud of  France and Germany  dreaming of coming home, going out to the cabins, staying a while, fishing the river, putting the memories of the war to rest. Only to come home and find that his mother had sold them while he was gone. He seldom spoke to us children about the cabins, perhaps his sense of loss was so profound that he put them out of  his mind.

Grandfather and my father also took fishing trips, horse packing out of the canyon with Robert Forsythe the area Forest Ranger, and packr I do not know anymore about him than that he had two daughters, both horsewomen  who lived in Arroyo Grande, Sid Spencer raised Morgans along Wittenberg Creek behind where Lopez lake is now, and Anne Westermann, who was my brother's 5th and 6th grade teacher at Harloe School in Arroyo Grande, she lived off Highway 227 north of town. If you can add to my meager history of Robert  Forsythe, I would greatly appreciate any information you can give me, thanks, homeranch@gmail.com

Customers of Waller Franklin Seed Company out at the Cabins




Grandfather barbecuing. Note his knee high boots and pants tucked in, compare his dress to the vests and ties of the "Easterners"..


Still with the ties, but a few beers is a good thing!




These men are employees of the company, dressed a little more casual, LD Waller standing on right.


I like the view of the Santa Ynez River canyon bottom behind. The river is just below the cabin site.


the barbecue remains, but needs work, see below
Modern photos of the cabins




This is one of the cabins, with a great screened in porch, my grandmother would cook in this cabin.

View of the other end of the cabin



Here is the barbecue, in need of repair but still standing 75 years later.


The other cabin with Barbecue in front of it.

View toward the river.




Example of the cabins at Baldwin Park being constructed for the 1932 Olympics


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