Pinecrest at 50: A Community with-in a Community.

Julian is a very special place, no-one could deny that. It prides itself on old time values and the strength of a community who comes together in times of adversity. Amazingly, there is a community with-in that community that shares those values and incorporates new ones. This enclave is a private retreat called Pinecrest.

Pinecrest Retreat has been around for a long, long time. In fact, it may surprise you to learn that on Labor Day of this year, Pinecrest will be celebrating its 50 year anniversary! Pinecrest is a private retreat that is home to a significant number of classic vintage trailers and a second home (get-away) to those who own them.

The park has one of the largest, solar-heated outdoor pools in Southern California, and a long history of inviting the community to share in this rich resource. In fact, for many locals, Pinecrest was the place they first learned to swim. Today the Olympic-sized pool is still enjoyed by the extended Julian community, with individual and family “Swim Club” memberships available for purchase at the club house (more information on the “Swim Club” is available at the Pinecrest website: http://www.pinecrestretreat.com/pool.shtml). The clubhouse holds dressing rooms with lockers and heated showers, and a classic little snack bar with goodies for all. The park is happy to announce that Judy Fender will be the new Pool Manager this summer! "Our pool club offers a quiet relaxing place to swim laps or practice exercises in a beautiful environment," says Kathleen Rosenow, who with her husband Frank Spevacek, has owned the retreat once used by employees of Convair and General Dynamics since 2005. What could be more inviting on a hot summer day than a sparkling swimming pool surrounded by an oak forest and mountain peaks?

Because the club house and pool are at the heart of Pinecrest, (it’s where site-holders come to sign-in and sign-out when they visit the park)  it has an old time general store feel. Newsworthy items are posted on the community bulletin board and bags of ice can be had for $1.25. Conversely on days when the sunlight is shimmering on the water just right and someone is quietly lounging on a deck chair reading a New Yorker magazine, it can feel a bit more like an exclusive summer resort than a funky rustic hide-away. But it’s the right blend people who make it magic. A combination of rural firefighters and shop-keepers mixed with urban Los Angelinos and San Diegans looking for some down time give the scene a relaxed and often playful vibe.

Another part of what makes Pinecrest special is the mix of old and new, funky and sophisticated, that make it hard to put a label on. For instance, while the road ways within the park remain dusty and unpaved, owners Rosenow and Spevacek are working with an architect to build a contemporary roof-shade structure that will also incorporate new solar heating for the pool as well as a photovoltaic solar system for electricity!

At 50 Pinecrest is still growing and changing, keeping the best of the past and while making thoughtful improvements to ensure a bright future.  In a world that seems to spin faster and faster, this is a place keeps its own pace. Come for the impromptu potluck picnics by the pool and stay for the sound of campfire songs wafting in the distance. Pinecrest is 50 years old now, and with the leadership of the new owners (along with the creative participation of the site holders and community at large) it will continue to change and improve for another 50!

POSE film shot at Pinecrest!

Ivaylo Getov, director of the movie POSE, was born in Bulgaria raised in Los Angeles, and is now living in New York City. He and his crew of 12 shot the movie at 3 locations: Pinecrest, Leo Carrillo State Beach, and New York City. The Pinecrest shoot involved hauling major set pieces & props, cameras, dollys, tracks and food and water up the steep hill to Timo Elliott's rustic site. Pinecrest Park managers Richard and Sydney were thanked in the movie credits for their all their help. Jayne Kennedy gave her permission for the film crew to use her trailer as a production office for the film, and they did.

The film was submitted to the SECRECT INTERNATIONAL OUTDOOR ARTS & FILM FESTIVAL (which is sometimes hosted at Pinecrest) and is being reviewed for possible inclusion in the festival, held June 11+12.  Find out more about this film at the links on the bottom of this page.

See the POSE trailer here.

THE PART OF THE PLOT THAT TAKES PLACE AT PINECREST:

A mysterious man named Nicola wakes up in a surreal wall-less cabin in the wilderness and knows nothing except that he must start walking. We return to his story at various points in Laylee’s narrative, picking up on him calmly trekking miles through the anonymous wilderness. Gradually he begins to question his drive to keep moving, but cannot think of any alternative. Only when he comes to the apparent end of his journey, seemingly walking to his own demise, does he realize that he could have taken control at any moment and turned back, but even at the final threshold he continues forward, disappearing forever.

 

FOR MORE INFO ON THE MOVIE GO TO THE BLOG:

http://blog.posethemovie.com/

 RICHARD and SYDNEY GET SPECIAL THANKS!

SEE THE MOVIE CREDITS HERE: 
 http://posethemovie.com/fullcredits.html

Spring Haiku

(Photo taken at site number one at the top of the hill, Pinecrest by Timo Elliott)

 
Yes, spring has come

This morning a nameless hill

Is shrouded in mist.

 

-Basho

COME FOR THE SNOW! STAY FOR THE HOT COCO!

 

Retro meets Techo!

Solar Concept Tent

Orange today revealed their vision for the tent of the future. Utilising cutting edge eco-energy technology, the Orange Solar Concept Tent will allow campers to keep in touch and power their essential camping gadgets.

The Concept Tent has been designed in association with American product design consultancy Kaleidoscope and builds on learnings from the original Orange Solar Tent that was trialled at Glastonbury in 2003, as well as 2004’s Orange Text Me Home Dome. Having worked closely with Glastonbury for the last eleven years, Orange know the importance of keeping in contact with friends while onsite and undertook this concept project to look at how the festival goers communication and power supply needs might be met in the future.

Photovoltaic Fabric

Latest research shows that by weaving specially coated solar threads into conventional fabric, revolutionary new ways of capturing the sun’s energy could soon become a reality. These radical advances mean that rather than relying upon familiar fixed panels, designers were free to conceive how a tent of flexible solar fabrics might look.

The Concept Tent’s solar shell uses this technology to full effect with three directional glides which can be moved throughout the day to maximise its solar efficiency, capturing the optimum amount of energy which can to be used throughout the tent in a variety of new and exciting ways.

Glo-cation technology

To avoid festival-goers ever losing their tent, the Concept Tent would be fitted with innovative “glo-cation” technology. Glo-cation works by enabling campers’ mobile phones to identify their tent using either an SMS message or automatic active RFID technology (a longer range version of that used in London Underground Oyster cards); both would trigger a distinctive glow in the tent helping identify it from a distance.

Wireless control hub

The heart of the Concept Tent is a central wireless control hub which displays energy generated and consumed as well as providing a wireless internet signal; all information is displayed on a flexible, touchscreen LCD display screen.

Integrated into the hub is a wireless charging pouch which powers mobile phones and other portable devices without the need for messy wires and multiple chargers. The ‘magnetic induction’ technology passes an electric current through a coil embedded in the charging pouch, this in turn generates a magnetic field which creates a charge and powers the battery.

Groundsheet heat

Also controlled by the central hub is an internal heating element embedded within the tent’s groundsheet; this under floor heating is triggered automatically once the interior temperature falls below a set level.

Kaleidoscope Strategist, Finn McKenty, said: “The development of photovoltaic fabric will revolutionize festival tent design, in working with Orange we have created a vision for a solar tent that we believe is a great glimpse of what’s to come.”

Ian Smith, Head of Sponsorship, Orange UK, said: “Since becoming Official Communications Partner of Glastonbury Festival in 1997 Orange has strived to enhance the camping experience through a variety of sustainable initiatives. Our vision of the concept tent builds on this heritage and recognizes the revolutionary effect cutting edge solar technology and wireless communication could have on festival goers’ camping experiences.”

VINTAGE TRAILERS: "It’s fun for its own sake."

One Designer’s Love: Vintage Trailers

(Here's a story from the NY Times that may be of interest to fellow vintage trailer enthusiasts that was brought to my attention by Pinecrester, Lynn Reinstein.)

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

The designer Bill Moggridge keeps his Southland Runabout at his house near Palo Alto, Calif.
He uses it as a guestroom. By DAVID COLMAN Published: February 25, 2011

“LOLITA, light of my life, fire of my loins.” 

So begins what may be literature’s greatest American road trip, Humbert Humbert at the wheel and young Dolores Haze at his side, fleeing propriety, legality and common sense into a deeply nondolorous haze. American writers have cooked up all kinds of metaphors for the United States, but it took the Russian-born Vladimir Nabokov to imagine it as a seductive teenage Lady Liberty in hot pants.
If the idea seems foreign to you, another foreigner — Bill Moggridge, the influential industrial designer and current director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum — understands only too well.
“Being a European and brought up after the war, everything was a little bit hard,” said Mr. Moggridge, who was born in England in 1943. “Ordinary things were hard to come by. We didn’t have a TV. My parents couldn’t afford a car. Looking at America, at Hollywood, at the houses and cars, it all seemed so full of fantasy. Impossible fantasy. I don’t know that I necessarily thought it was good. I thought it was fantastic.”
So in the 1970s, Mr. Moggridge moved to California — not to Hollywood, but to Silicon Valley, where he designed, among other things, what is widely considered the first laptop computer, later becoming a founder of the design firm IDEO. In off-hours, though, he found himself gravitating to his teenage reveries of 1950s America, clad in what to him was the decade’s most magical substance: aluminium, as the British call it.
It’s amazing that aluminum was once considered so rare that, in possibly the grandest gesture of 1884, the crowning pyramid at the top of the Washington Monument was made of it. (It’s actually the third most common element in the earth’s crust.) Some 70 years later — when Lolita made her debut — aluminum was being fashioned into almost everything, from dishes, countertops and baseball bats, to boats, cars and entire buildings.
And, most heavenly to Mr. Moggridge, trailers. With Americans in thrall to their shiny new cars, and aircraft factories needing ways to keep business going, the aluminum trailer became one of the most iconic trophies of the decade. It was democratic, pragmatic and mobile, as well as misguided, preposterous and hopelessly optimistic: America, sealed in a can.
In the 1990s, when Mr. Moggridge and his wife, Karin, were building a house in the hills north of Palo Alto, Calif., he decided it was time to indulge. He started with an inexpensive Vagabond, then a Hughes Spartanette (made by Hughes Aircraft). But both trailers needed renovation, and Mr. Moggridge didn’t have the money, the skill or, frankly, the interest to get it done.
Through these misfires, he learned what he yearned for. Not merely a real 1950s experience, but a dream home on wheels, which in his mind looked less like a cheap Formica kitchenette and more like the beautiful wood cabinetry of a ship — historical accuracy be damned.
Then, one weekend about 10 years ago, he drove down the California coast to a gathering of vintage-trailer enthusiasts. (There are enthusiasts for everything.) There he came across a restored Southland Runabout, complete with lovingly done-up wood cabinets. He made a deal with the owner (which included unloading his Vagabond), and the Runabout was his. He took it home, and in an affront to both its name and nature, made it into a guest room.
It may be rather a surprise to find one of today’s most eminent designers with a soft spot for such a kitschy contraption. But Mr. Moggridge said that plenty of the lessons of design history are not part of the holy design dogma of FFF (that is, form follows function).
“When you go to designers’ houses, you see a lot of kitsch,” he said. “Instead of living the work they do, they like to see the exaggerated edges of how things can go. And kitsch has a kind of shameless enthusiasm that allows you to revel in these values, like excessive decoration or the overly bold use of color, that are not quite respectable.
“It’s the same sort of appeal as postmodernism, except kitsch is done with such self-consciousness. It’s fun for its own sake. You can’t say it’s elegant or beautiful, but you can say it’s a lot of fun.”
And, you know, it’s not the worst way of describing America, either.

3rd Annual Secret International Outdoor Arts & Film Festival

.

THE SIOAFF ORGANIZERS ANNOUNCE "THE OFFICIAL"

CALL FOR ENTRIES! 

Independent projects created with-in the last 3 years are welcome to submit. Films must have a running time no longer than 18 minutes and be submitted in standard DVD format.There will be a special award granted for best film shot at PINECREST. Filmmakers are encouraged to be present.

June 11th & 12th, 2011

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: APRIL 15TH. 

(EXTENDED DEADLINE MAY 15TH: $20)

 SEND DVDs TO: 1923 GEORGIA CT, SAN DIEGO, CA 92104 

THE SIOAFF IS AN ALL VOLUNTEER ARTS & CULTURAL EVENT WHICH CELEBRATES HAVING FUN TOGETHER AND BEING CREATIVE. PLEASE CONTACT TIMO ELLIOTT FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOW YOU CAN HELP.

Phil Noyes aka "Mayor of Pinecrest" writes for RV Magazine

Pinecrest Resort "Resident Mayor", enthusiast and vintage trailer expert Phil Noyes (pictured right) has some good news to report:

"Hey everybody. My first two articles came out in the Spring edition of RV Magazine. You can pick it up at most news stands. I have a regular column - "Trailer Tribe" about the world of vintage trailers and I did a travel piece about the Shady Dell in AZ. The articles wont be online for 90 days, so I know you'll rush out and buy a copy."

Here's a link to the RV Mags FB page http://www.facebook.com/rvmagazine

Be a Good Neighbor!

Just because we vintage campers tend to be "interesting maverick individual" types, doesn't mean we want to go it alone all the live-long day! Sure we are up at Pinecrest to "get away from it all" and "have a little chill-time", but consider taking a few minutes to get to know your neighbor. Building community with this special group of people empowers us all.

Here are some easy tips!

Don't sneak up on your neighbor. Walk in view of him/her; even wave as you approach. This may sound obvious, but think about how freaked out you'd be to talk to someone who scared the living daylights out of you. As soon as you reach your new neighbor, introduce yourself in whatever way you feel comfortable. They will pick up the slack at this point and offer an excited, welcoming reply. Keep the initial conversation short and steered toward common ground: camping, trailers, neighborhood activities, things to do about town. Keep it light and fun, then be sure to watch for signs that your new neighbor is finished talking. Don't keep her there any longer than she wants to be there. And don't start asking invasive questions about your neighbor's personal or professional life or even where he or she is from (they aren't "getting away from it all" just so they can be reminded of it all). In good time, you'll learn more private details. A nice, quick conversation is best. Leave your neighbor thinking that you are relaxed, easygoing and someone he is going to look forward to running into at a later date.

Saying "Hi"! It's so easy!  Saying "hello" is a lost art that needs to be brought back. Try this: When you are out and about and you encounter someone you haven't met say "Hi!", make eye contact and smile. If they feel like engaging in a little conversation they will pick up the ball and toss it in your court... if not just wave and keep on moving. Everyone's day is a little brighter.

Spruce up your outdoor space, and spend time there.  Hang out on your porch, picnic table or fireside. Put a (tasteful) conversation piece in front of your camp: plant flowers or display some fun-funky art. Don't be shy. You'll find everyone at Pinecrest is pretty cool.

Practice common courtesies  Tidy up for your neighbor (who may not have been up yet) after strong winds or a storm: stow their folding chairs back under the camper, or untangle their wind chimes for them. Help new comers and guests who might need a little assistance with awkward gear, backing a trailer into a site or tying down a tarp before a predicted wet week-end. (I bet they will do the same for you next time.)

Stroll. Post. Offer.  Take an evening stroll around the block. Post a note on the clubhouse bulletin board inviting folks over for coffee one morning, or check it to see what others are up to! When you are heading into town, ask a neighbor if they need anything, this saves them a needless trip and builds a strong bond.

Get involved with the Pinecrest community garden.

Did you know that Pinecrest has a community garden where fresh flowers, herbs and veggies are grown? It's located a little way up the hill from the pool headed to the west. Volunteer! Check-in with Syd to get the overview, then get your green thumb to work.

Being a good neighbor is easy.

The reward? PRICELESS!

Short Film Shot at Pinecrest! Festival to be Announced.

Pinecrest site-holders Lynn Reinstein and Timo Elliott collaborated on the creation of an indie short film using Lynn's trailer and the natural beauty of her site. This project, entitled Something In The Darkness, is a dark-comedy-thriller made with a very dangerous looking gun and a good old fashioned yeti costume. Elliott & Reinstein (in collaboration with Ann Keniston) are also the co-founders of the First Annual International Secret Arts & Film Festival, which also took place at Pinecrest. They hope to present their new film, and others like it, at the next International Secret Arts & Film Festival again at Pinecrest, at a date to be disclosed as needed. Stay Tuned!

Join in the fun! Make your own short film at Pinecrest, 20 minutes or less, using any genre and we will include it in our Festival!