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PALM LATITUDES
BODY POLITIC
Retreat of the Master Race

By Lionel Rolfe,

The remains of a Nazi utopia lie eerily quiet at the
bottom of Rustic Canyon. For years, the L. A.
Department of Recreation and Parks has
wanted to bulldoze the site and make it into a picnic
area, but a constant shortage of money and staff has
left undisturbed the dream of Winona Stephens.

In 1933, Stephens, heir to a mining fortune, created the
Murphy Ranch on 50 secluded acres near what is now
Topanga State Park. The evil genius behind it all,
according to Pacific Palisades historian Randy Young,
was a Nazi spy named Schmidt. Herr Schmidt
persuaded Stephens to invest more than $4 million to
create a self-supporting community where a chosen
few would live until the day anarchy fell on the United
States after a presumed Nazi victory over England. They
would then emerge to govern a California hungry for
order.

By 1940, they had built a garage with living quarters
overhead, a huge concrete water tank, a diesel fuel tank
and a dual-generator power station. Stephens, Schmidt
and 50 other future master racers lived on the site,
cultivating a vegetable garden and waiting for the New
World Order. Guards stood at the gates, and the
sounds of military drills often rang through the canyon.

The day after the United States entered World War II,
Schmidt was arrested by the FBI and the community
soon began to disintegrate. Now the buildings lie in
ruins, littered with the remains of bonfires and
plastered with graffiti, including swastikas. The canyon
walls above are cut by four staircases of crumbling,
treacherous concrete.

To get to Murphy Ranch, hike a couple of miles down
the Camp Josepho fire road, which starts at the west
end of Casale Road, until the big flagstone gateway
appears. Simply walk around behind the right side of
the imposing structure; it's only a mile or so more down
the roadway made dark with thick ponderosa pine
stands, bougainvillea and overhanging eucalyptus, to
the ruined Nazi mecca.