The 68-year-old organization has lost the land where it has held shoots for the past 66 years.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
Said to be the oldest continuously operating field archery range in the United States, the Malibu Mountain Archery Club offered its last “shoot” on Saturday. The club is unstringing its bows at the location in Latigo Canyon where it regularly held shoots since 1940. The property has been sold for development.
First established in 1938, the club has trained thousands of aspiring William Tells, from kindergartners to the Hollywood elite. Errol Flynn learned to shoot here, as well as Shirley Temple, James Garner, novelist Erle Stanley Gardner and Tarzan’s Johnny Weissmuller.
Members are hoping the club will be able to relocate, but acknowledge that the loss of the current site is a severe blow. Local resident Bill Androlia has been a member for 10 years.
“From my understanding, they plan to put some houses on the property up above the archery club, but they need an easement to get there. Basically, they need the range site to build a road,” he said. “I’ve been in Malibu since 1972 and it has changed a lot in the past five or ten years. This is just another huge loss of old Malibu’s history.”
Willie Holmes has been a member since 1979 and shoots 380-400 a round, or, in the parlance of an archer, is a “top shooter.” When asked what he will do now that the club is closing, Holmes said he set up a range in his backyard in West Los Angeles.
“My neighbors are OK with it …since I’m a decent shot,” he said.
“Decent! Willie’s a national champion,” said Sharon Prey, historian of the club and a Level 3 instructor in archery. Level 4 is the highest ranking for an instructor.
“At an Olympic level, where I coach it’s about hitting difficult targets, not hunting game,” Prey said. “People are surprised when I tell them that our range is hunting-free. Which is kind of funny, since we are surrounded with all kinds of game.”
“Our range is an animal sanctuary,” she added.
Field archery ranges are laid out not on one uniform field, but running through narrow forest trails, much like golf course fairways, albeit on a much smaller scale, with the targets nestled in sun-dappled forest glades. And although their shoots don’t target live animals, the range targets are in the form of animals.
“We have bears, deer, badgers, turkeys, even a pink pig we call Arnold,” Prey said. “But they are all made out of a dense foam with water proof covering.”
After a few shoots, the targets look a bit bedraggled.
One of Prey’s duties at the club is to refurbish degraded targets, which she performs in a dog-eared trailer on the range site.
“They’ll be brought to me and I’ll just say, ‘Oh, honey, they shot you up again!” she said. “A little foam, linen and paint, and they are good as new.”
All the targets are returned to the field, unless they are being used by nesting birds.
“Sometimes the woodpeckers carve holes into the targets and build their nests there,” Prey explained. “If they do that, we just tag the targets so hunters don’t shoot at them till the babies are gone.”
The 68-year history of the Malibu Mountain Archery Club has seen its share of natural disasters, including floods and fires.
“But we continued to function as an open field archery range, even during the war,” said Ralph Hydle, a club Level 4 instructor.
During the ’40s the old Malibu Mountain Inn would serve refreshments to range hunters, until it burnt down. It was run by Max Couchois, who agreed to store the hay bales used for targets in his barn, until that burnt down as well.
“The whole range has burnt down a couple of times,” Hydle said.
Androlia reminisced about the winds that blew into the canyon in the mid-90s: “The winds just picked up the latrines and blew them all the way to Latigo Canyon Road,” he said. “We’ve had to rebuild a lot here.”
The club has also successfully served a community of inner-city youth, bussing them in from South Central Los Angeles.
“Our program is one of the favorites of these kids,” Prey said. “If they have their choice of going to Magic Mountain or coming here to study archery, they come here.”
The archery club has also volunteered its facilities, equipment and training personnel for other charities such as the Cancer Hope Foundation and the Royal Family Camps for children suffering from emotional trauma.
Instructor Hydle said he regrets that the community will be losing this source of recreation.
“Archery is a very Zen pursuit,” he said.
The idea of looking for another property is being tossed around.
“We don’t need much space and it can be the least desirable in terms of development,” he said.
Prey echoed the sentiment. “The most horrible, most unbuildable land is perfect for a field archery range,” she said. “Hopefully, someone from the community will step forward with a few unused acres for us.”