Barney Hoskyns (in Hotel California, his take on the Laurel Canyon/Sunset Strip scene)
In this outing, we will be temporarily leaving Laurel Canyon. But don't worry; we won't be traveling far, and we'll be returning soon enough.
Today we will be exploring Rustic Canyon, which lies about nine miles west of Laurel Canyon. It was there, in Lower Rustic Canyon, that Beach Boy Dennis Wilson lived in what Steven Gaines described in Heroes and Villains as "a palatial log-cabin-style house at 14400 Sunset Boulevard that had once belonged to humorist Will Rogers." The expansive home sat on three landscaped acres of gently rolling hills.
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| ©Unknown |
| The Floor of Upper Rustic Canyon |
In the summer of 1968, as is fairly well known, Charlie Manson and various members of his entourage moved in with Wilson. "Tex" Watson, curiously enough, was already living there. As many as two-dozen members of Manson's clan spent the entire summer there, with Wilson picking up the tab for all expenses. The Mansonites (mostly nubile young women) regularly drove Wilson's expensive cars and demolished at least one of them. Dennis didn't seem to mind; he was busy recording Manson in his home studio and inviting fellow musicians, like Neil Young, over to the house to hear Charlie perform (Young was so impressed that he urged Mo Ostin to sign him).
Dennis would later claim that he had destroyed all the Manson demo tapes, that he remembered almost nothing of his time with Charlie and the Family, and that he certainly knew nothing about the Tate and LaBianca murders, which were committed in the summer of 1969, about a year after the Family had vacated the Rustic Canyon residence.
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| ©Unknown |
| The end of the line for the stairway leading to the floor of Rustic Canyon |
Comment: Continue to part XI