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More from LifestyleImpress your neighbors with these trivial facts from "The Santa Monica Mountains: Range on the Edge":
n Explorer Gaspar de Portolá named the Santa Monica Mountains in honor of St. Monica, patron saint of alcoholics, abuse victims and wives.
n Lake Sherwood in Thousand Oaks inspired the animated character Woody Woodpecker. According to author Matthew Jaffe, "This bird's persistent tapping on the roof of a house where Walter Lantz was staying proved sufficiently annoying that it inspired the animator to create one of the most endearing, if insufferable, cartoon characters."
n In 1951, Ronald Reagan bought a 290-acre ranch in the Malibu Hills, which he called Yearling Row, for $65,000. He sold the ranch in 1966 for almost $2 million; it's now part of Malibu Creek State Park. (Reagan's "environmental legacy in the mountains is decidedly mixed," Jaffe writes. Three state parks in the Santa Monicas were acquired during Reagan's term as governor, but for recreation rather than preservation. Then, when Reagan was president, his administration was stingy with funds for obtaining more land.)
n Famous and infamous folks who've populated the Santa Monicas — many of them in countercultural Laurel or Topanga canyons — either as residents or visitors, include Errol Flynn, Aldous Huxley, Joni Mitchell, Nazi survivalists, L. Frank Baum, novelist Thomas Mann and Frank Zappa. Silent film cowboy Tom Mix and Zappa lived in the same Laurel Canyon cabin (at different times).
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