OMG, we are leaving Bear Creek soon.
Our 30-year run here will end later this year, when we move to Mesquite, Nevada. Between now and then, we will be pretty much on the road, killing time in the RV, seeing America.
Charlie and I relocated here (in Murrieta) from Riverside when the last of our children, Jonathan, moved out of our two-story home in the Arlington Hills area. There were lots of great memories there…essentially, the boys’ teenage years, but it was time to downsize and have some “together time”.
There were no cities of Murrieta and Temecula back in 1988, just “towns” in the unincorporated area of Southwest Riverside County. In fact, when we moved to Bear Creek, it was necessary to drive at least five miles to get a gallon of milk. The I-15 freeway existed, as did the Clinton-Keith off ramp, and there was one stop sign between the freeway and the new Jack Nicklaus golf club community. And, that’s all there was…open fields and the new Bear Creek community, set in the coastal foothills.
Mr. Nicklaus and his investors envisioned a “country club community”, populated with upper crust golfers, businessmen, and well-to-do retirees.
We weren’t any of those people, but we sneaked in by purchasing the least expensive condo in the Oak Tree development; I think we paid a little over $200K.
(The Nicklaus’ designed golf course was, and is, one of the best in Southern California. In the early years, it was a magnet for exceptional golfers (“plus” handicaps). The Skins Game, a nationally televised event, was held in Bear Creek in 1985.)
In the late 80’s and early 90’s, many of the “estate” properties began to be developed into modest mansions. We met many of the owners through the Golf Club, and the social activities thereof; in fact, Charlie became a mover-and-shaker of the Social Committee. So, we ended up knowing everyone and got invited to many fancy parties, as the new homeowners were anxious to show off their new digs. Each new rich guy would try to one-up the last one’s home and housewarming party.
Gee, we sure ate a lot of shrimp!
We paid a lot of money to join the equity golf club. I didn’t play a lot of golf back then, because I worked all week, so it was pretty expensive golf. It probably cost us about $1,200 per month to belong to the club. But, those were heady times, and we had a lot of fun hobnobbing, meeting interesting people, and becoming part of the local society.
Charlie became a major wheel in the area’s largest charitable organization, the Assistance League. (In 1997, she became President!)
I would say that the best years in Bear Creek were those first 5 to 10 years, when we lived in Oak Tree. However, there was a recession in the mid- to late-90’s, and it caused quite a few of the original residents to leave. In their stead came a crop of “bargain hunters”, and the Golf Club changed. In place of the old camaraderie, there developed schisms: the rich folk; the retirees; the golf purists, etc. Homeowner association politics became pronounced, and much bad blood ensued.
In the early 2000’s, it came to a head when a “golf purist” group took control of the Golf Club and, essentially, chased a large group of club members/property owners out of Bear Creek.
It was a bad decision, as the Club lost about 150 equity members…who had been paying, on the average, about $1,000 per month.
I was one of those members (and, I was also on the Club’s Board of Directors at the time); Charlie and I didn’t leave Bear Creek, but we did quit the Club.
The Club went bankrupt within about five years.
(I believe that Bear Creek has the distinction of being the only golf club master-planned development by Jack Nicklaus where he actually lost money. Of course, he bailed on Bear Creek many years before, shortly after the mid-90’s recession.)
Bear Creek remained a beautiful place to live, and we continued to do so for another dozen years. But, there’s too much politics now…
…we’ve inherited some bad neighbors…
…and we’ve gotten too old for our tri-level home on Lochinvar Court (where we’ve lived for twenty years).
We’re done with the stairs!
When we moved to the town of Murrieta back in ’88, there were maybe 15,000 people living here; now, it is a city with a population of 115,000. There a lots of streetlights, traffic signals, restaurants, retail establishments, parks, schools, trees and…activity. It’s a nice place to live, no doubt about it.
We’ve made a lot of friends here. Many have moved on, quite a few have died, and there are very few of the “original” Bear Creek folk still around. In the glossy Bear Creek magazine that we receive in the mail each month, I don’t recognize 90 percent of the people being featured. Charlie and I are now some of the old fogies, the dinosaurs who claim that things were better “in the good ol’ days”.
It’s actually true.
It is also time to move on to a new beginning elsewhere. In Mesquite, we will develop a new crop of friends, engage in new social activities, and probably develop some new BFF’s.
We will still have our “Murrieta connection”, as a number of our kin live there, and we plan on vacationing in Southern California each Fall. So, we will retain old friendships if that is in the cards.
If everyone doesn’t die on us.