“All right,” Jake said. “Point conceded. I apologize for making light of your profession.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“It is a pretty boring profession though. You do realize that, right?”
“Jake!”
He held up his hands in appeasement, then put his arm around Laura’s shoulders to continue the introductions. “Anyway ... this is Laura Best, my girlfriend and my note keeper for this particular trip. She’s a musician as well.”
“I know who she is,” Brook said. “I saw you playing sax for Bobby Z when you performed in Santa Barbara last year. It’s an honor to meet you, Ms. Best.”
“Uh ... thank you,” Laura said, surprised that someone recognized her as anything other than Jake’s girlfriend. “Did you enjoy the show?”
“It was outstanding,” Brook said. “I’ve been a smooth jazz fan for years, and Bobby Z is one of the best out there. I think you’re just as good, if not better than Dexter Price. That solo you did was amazing. It brought tears to my eyes.”
This proclamation obviously made Laura’s day. “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she told him.
“Are you and Bobby Z working on a new album yet? I understand you just go back from a tour of South America.”
“Z is probably working on some new stuff now,” Laura told him. “Myself, I’m on a little hiatus from performing currently. He might ask me to play with him when it’s time to hit the studio, or he might not. Either way, that’s a few months in the future, at least.”
“Well, I just want you to know that I’m a definite fan, Laura ... may I call you Laura?”
“You may,” she said, smiling.
“All righty then,” Jake said. “Now that we all know each other, how about we go take a look at the land?”
“Let’s do it,” Brook said, waving toward the Mercedes.
They piled in and made the drive. Jake asked Brook if he could make a run through the town of Oceano on the way so he could check it out, make sure it had the basics of what a person would need if one chose to live there.
“Sure can,” Brook told him. “In fact, going through town is the only way to the property from the airport. Highway 1 is Oceano’s main drag.”
The made the drive, with Laura keeping track of how long it took while Jake checked out the town. It seemed to have most everything a resident of the area would reasonably need. There were gas stations, several grocery stores, a few restaurants, a fair number of bars and pubs. A pharmacy. A hardware store. There was no hospital in the town itself, but Brook assured him that there was a fine hospital in nearby Arroyo Grande, just a little bit inland.
They left the town to the north and Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, or PCH as it was commonly called, merged with Highway 101 for a stretch just outside the city limits. The two-lane road paralleled the coast but they were rarely able to see the ocean itself in this stretch due to the huge sand dunes that stood sentinel between the water and the road. Dozens of all-terrain vehicles of varying type, all of which had tall red flags mounted on poles that stuck far up into the air, could be seen zipping around up and down the dunes and even on the beach itself when it became visible.
“The sand dunes are what this area is known for,” Brook explained. “They stretch for miles along the coast here. People come from all over the world to ride those ATVs in them.”
“What’s with the flags?” Laura asked.
“It’s for visibility,” Brook said. “Riders on opposite slopes of a dune can see each other coming that way and avoid colliding.”
“Ahhh, makes sense,” she said.
Jake had a more practical concern. “Are they riding those things on the property we’re going to see?” he asked. He was all for people having fun, but he didn’t want to hear the constant whine of ATV engines covering up the sound of the ocean.
“No,” Brook said. “The property is just north of where the dunes end. The plot sits on a plateau over a stretch of rocky cliffside seacoast. Just to the south of the property is the northern fringes of Pismo Beach State Park. Just to the north is Dinosaur Caves Park. The land is a little piece of privately-owned property tucked in between two stretches of state-owned land.”
“So, they won’t be able to develop around it?” asked Jake.
“Not unless the state decides to sell off some of its prime beachfront land to a developer,” Brook said. “Something that is extremely unlikely to happen.”
Eleven minutes outside of the town, the highway curved away from the coast a bit. Another mile after this, Brook turned the Mercedes onto a badly maintained gravel path that wound through a passage between a set of hills dotted with sagebrush and a few Cyprus trees. About a half a mile in, they came to a metal gate, painted forest green, that blocked the road. A large sign reading PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING! was mounted on it. A rusty padlock dangled from the bar that secured the gate.
“This is the start of the property here,” Brook said. “Everything on this side of the gate is owned by the County of San Luis Obispo and is zoned as protected coastal hills unsuitable for development. The owner of the property is granted a perpetual easement for the road itself as long as the owner pays for the maintenance and upkeep of the easement. On the other side of that gate is a little chunk of private land that was granted to the Simmons family shortly after the Mexican-American War. They used to be one of the prominent families in the area, but they squandered their wealth away back during the Great Depression and sold the land to a development company that wanted to build a hotel here. That never came to pass and the land has been sold from one developer to the other a few more times. Currently it’s owned by the Heliodorus Development Company, which is controlled primarily by Andre Heliodorus and his wife. They are probably the richest people in the five-cities area. Most of the development that takes place in coastal SLO county involves land that they own or otherwise have some interest in.”
“Do you know these people?” Jake asked.
“I do,” Brook said. “A very nice family. Very down to earth for people with a net worth that is well into the eight-digit range. They live in a mansion just a little bit north of here, in Avilia Beach.”
“How come they have never developed this property before?” Jill asked.
“Because about the only thing it’s good for is what Jake here is proposing for it,” Brook said. “You can’t really slap down a hotel or condos or a resort because it’s surrounded by state or county land on all sides and it doesn’t really have an accessible beach. There would be no reason for anyone to want to stay here other than the view of the ocean. It would be perfect for a private home as long as one is able to pay for development of the lot, wells, connection to the power grid, and all the other things that go along with building in a place like this. Such buyers are few and far between. Jake, in fact, is the first person who has shown any interest in the property in the past ten years.”
“Why did they buy the land if it’s not good for anything?” asked Laura.
“Because they’re real estate developers and that’s what they do,” Brook said. “Real estate will always go up in a value over time—they can’t make any more of it, after all—so the plot was a long-term investment. There will always eventually be someone like Jake who comes along and wants to buy oceanfront property in California.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Laura said.
“I’m pretty sure they didn’t expect it to take this long to unload, however,” Brook added.
“Then they’ll give me a good price?” Jake asked.
Brook chuckled. “They’ll give you what they feel is a good price,” he said. “They are business people and they will demand fair market value, plus a little more.”
“Fair market value I’ll pay,” Jake said. “I will not put up with anyone trying to screw me though. The first hint that they’re trying to slide it in, I walk and I never do business with them again.”