The house on Pala Road

The house for sale on Pala Road just south of Whispering Oaks Terrace is not the former home of Erle Stanley Gardner, but it was the home of at least two notable residents. Gardner never lived there, and I don't believe he ever owned it, but it has a many storied past and does have a connection to the prolific Perry Mason author. Gardner's residence is located on the Pechanga Reservation in the hills near the casino and Journey Golf Course.

The house for sale is recognizable for its distinctive rockwork terracing around the foundation and for the stained-glass window on the north side. It is definitely a historic structure.

My journey of discovery about the historical house on Pala Road began in 2003 when I unzipped a blue vinyl suitcase in Tony Tobin's barn nearby on Homestead Lane. Inside the suitcase I found yellowing newspapers from the mid-1960s. When Tobin, a respected historian and collector, died he bequeathed his barn full of artifacts and collections to the Vail Ranch Restoration Association. While my husband Darell Farnbach and two other like-minded men sifted through artifacts, I sorted through the books and papers.

Tobin had saved entire newspapers, each for a specific reason, and I moved into a detective role to figure out why each was saved. Had Tobin clipped the articles of interest, it would have made my quest easier, but no, I had to look through each entire newspaper to find which one or two articles he deemed worth saving.

During this process of about four months, a pattern emerged. I found a serialized story about the history of the area very carefully researched and written by a woman named Helene Seay. As a historian and writer, I needed to find her.

Some of the old timers who I asked recognized her name, but they said maybe it was Helen and not Helene. It was confusing because of a Joe and a Joel, a Helene and a Helen all with the last name Seay.

I did internet searches and continued to ask around the community until it all came together in an unexpected triangulation when the director of the Temecula Valley Museum invited me to meet a woman named Robin and a man named Joel. Robin had an unpublished manuscript of interest, and Joel was looking for an 1883 Temecula school record book that Tobin had borrowed in 1996 and had not returned. The record book recorded names of pioneer families of the valley, including Louis Wolf's and several of the Pechanga families who attended the Temecula School on Wolf Road.

The incredible part of the story is that when I arrived at the museum, the unpublished manuscript Robin shared, "Ramona's People," was written by Helene Seay and the man looking for the school record book was Joel Seay, Helene's son. Neither Robin nor Joel had met previously, and the three of us who each held a part of the answer for each other's queries stood in the room together.

As we spoke, we learned the back story that resolved each of our questions. Helene and her husband Joe bought the property now for sale on Pala Road in 1956 from John and Bessie Hampton. It made a wonderful home for son Joel and daughter Sandy. Joe opened a restaurant, "Joe's Place" on Front Street in Temecula, and Helene had an antique store called Serendipity next door. Helene also wrote for the Fallbrook Free Press, and here's the ESG connection, she was a secretary in Gardner's "Fiction Factory."

All did not go well for the Seays, however. In time Joel got into trouble and opted to go to Vietnam rather than face other consequences. Joe left Helene for a younger woman named Helen. Gardner released Helene from her secretarial job, her health failed and she sank into depression. Joel came home from Vietnam when he was summoned for his mother's funeral.

Several years later, Robin, who lived next door to the former Seays home was playing with the children of the family who had moved in. A doctor had bought the home and 6 acres of property. While there, Robin opened the drawer of a built-in buffet and discovered a hand-typed book manuscript, Helene's manuscript "Ramona's People."

Within a few weeks of our meeting at the museum, Robin gave Helene's manuscript to me for possible future publication by the Temecula Valley Historical Society. She was a little reluctant to part with the treasure she had discovered 30 years before, but she wanted to give it to the historical society to be shared with the public.

My husband and I found Joel's school record book in Tobin's archives and returned it to him. In gratitude, Joel gifted us with two of his mother's reference books, "Ramona" and "Glimpses of California and the Missions" by Helen Hunt Jackson.

Joel directed us to his mother's grave in the Temecula Cemetery. I visit her from time to time. It was too late for me to meet Helene in person, but I feel like I know her from her writings. Joel died in 2016 and was buried near his mother. Joel's daughter, now my friend, gave us the school record book, and it is on display at the Little Temecula History Museum.

Since the Seays vacated the house on Pala Road, several happy families have lived there. The doctor put in a pool where he invited some of his patients to come to relax and to get into a calm place in the countryside.

My knowledge and appreciation grew for the property in 2019 when standing in a nearby vineyard I asked the owner where her great-grandfather's illegal bar was located. I knew it was on Pala Road. She said it was at what later became the Seays' home.

Of course, Darell and I looked inside the house when it was vacant a few years ago and saw a wonderful, large fireplace with a swinging wrought iron arm to bring cooking pots forward and backward onto the fire. Indeed, the core of the house could well date back to before 1905 when the authorities raided the illegal bar.

So that is the rich story of the house on Pala Road and its connection to Erle Stanley Gardner. I will write sometime soon about Rancho del Paisano, the ranch that really did belong to the famous author. It belongs to Pechanga and is not for sale.

Rebecca Marshall Farnbach is a member of the Temecula Valley Historical Society and is an author and co-author of several history books about the Temecula area. The books are available for purchase at the Little Temecula History Center or online from booksellers and at http://www.temeculahistoricalsociety.org. Visit Farnbach's Amazon author page at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01JQZVO5E. The Little Temecula History Museum, the red barn at the corner of Redhawk Parkway and Temecula Parkway in Temecula is open on Sundays from noon to 5 p.m.

KEYWORDS: Temecula, Pala Road, Little Temecula History Museum, Seays, Helene Seays,