I didn’t know him well.

He was the guru of fringe in upper Altadena. People flocked to him, especially young people looking for a place to gather.

I cannot assess him fairly. I can only talk about my limited experience, and intersperse information from a bit of research (thank you, internet). I should probably dig deeper because he was indeed a local presence and influence, and I do have an interest in the edges of culture. But he died in 2004 at the age of 92 and must remain an unexplored opportunity.

He held parties, legendary, clothing optional. Guys would say conspiratorially, “You can see a lot of boobies.” Girls would say, “You can be free and mingle.” There are photos.

They were called bacchanals but sounded like orgies to me, and I only heard about them.

The Zorthian Ranch was at the top of Fair Oaks Avenue past a gate where you leave the suburban houses and enter the hills. Up there it’s protected National Forest (where are the trees?) where real estate keeps encroaching, pushing the laws, on the east, Upper Hastings Ranch, on the west, La Viña, the historic convalescent resident hospital for pulmonary problems, lung disease, pneumonia, built in the hills above the smog. Shirley and I rambled there among the cottages, and on a clear day you could see all the way down to the ocean and Catalina Island off shore.

I don’t know the history, but apparently the smog didn’t behave and crept up the hill, the whole settlement was razed and sold and rebuilt as a gated community housing development suburban to Altadena.

Zorthian’s Ranch was between the two, and he gave us the tour.

He treated us like visiting dignitaries. Maybe he had heard of us, the way we had heard of him.

It needn’t have been an issue, but it was with him. He was short. Very short. He belongs on my list of short people I have known, along with Papa Cristo in L. A., and the owner of Roma Market on Lake Ave., home of “The Sandwich.”

Zorthian was a person I was happy to stand beside. I have a photo of me beside Papa Cristo, and I, who have been short all my life, look like a giant.

Zorthian was an artist. He did murals in Tennessee that earned him acclaim, but I didn’t know that at the time. He had a reputation and was constantly trying to inflate it.

He showed us his estate, which eventually expanded to 48 acres. I felt like a foreign ambassador given the tour.

He pointed out his current dwelling, and the site where the larger house had stood. There were parts of it still there, and everywhere on the property wood and metal and pieces of buildings, doors, cornices, broken machines, derelict cars and trucks, like a collection of things discarded but not gotten rid of because you can always use them somehow and it was a sin to throw things away. It reminded me of Di Palma’s Italian Village in the borderlands between Riverside and Elsinore, a restaurant and parts of houses, structures, stages, always being built and rebuilt and revised and augmented with the vision of a village adjacent to the world with eventually its own zoo. It was like Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, constantly unfinished.

Zorthian was also in progress, developing an artist colony, a school, a summer camp, Zorthian Ranch for Children. He was always looking for ways to make money, since the income was never adequate. He talked about his wrestles with the IRS, inspectors, government regulations.

He pointed out hiking trails, little valleys, volleyball, places where summer camp children could recreate to justify the expense and have the chance to spend time in actual nature.

He took us into a building which had art displayed. He touted his work in magazines, newspaper clippings, and framed paintings.

He felt that fame had somehow passed him by, never adequate to his deserving, that he had a reputation which continued to need refueling, that he had been better known but now had to deal with such details as what to serve his summer camp children for lunch that would cut corners and not break the bank.

I think Shirley knew his second wife Dabney.

Shirley pointed to a row of colorful pictures and said, “These are your best work.” He grumpily replied, “They’re not mine. I bought them in Mexico.”

He reminded me of Curtis Zahn, another contemporary artist at the forefront of fringe, but a writer, verbal art. I knew Curtis better and have written about him at length. Another oversized ego seeking attention but under-deserving it.

I knew nothing at the time of Zorthian’s friendship with Richard Feynman. Again, Shirley knew more about that whole gang, including Murray Gell-Mann’s wife with whom she sang in the Arroyo Singers which included Feynman’s wife. Gell-Mann was Feynman’s colleague in the development of quark theory, and there was a rivalry for first place dominance evident in their license plates, where Gell-Mann’s read Quark 2, but Feynman’s boasted Quark 1. The choir rehearsals were held in Gell-Mann’s garage, and when Feynman came to pick up his wife, he stayed parked outside and waited for her to come out to him.

Feynman was a near neighbor, just down the street and around the corner. Altadena was a home of the great and near great. It still is.

California it seems is at the forefront of everything. Innovation, science, technology, media and the film industry, broadcast journalism, famous writers, all the arts, stand-up comedy, whatever is contemporary.

It’s the warm California weather, the promise of gold, the last stop at the end of the continent, that draws the pioneering spirit, and the homeless who need a place to sleep.

Zorthian took us on an extensive tour of his domain. He stopped us at the edge of a deep pit which held gigantic wild pigs. “You don’t want to fall in. They’re fierce.” His summer camp parents had to sign a waiver. His zoo could be dangerous.

I don’t remember all the words we exchanged as we were leaving, the polite thank you. His reputation hung in the air. It helped that he was Armenian, because Pasadena including Altadena is, second only to Glendale, the largest gathering of Armenians outside Armenia.

As a parting image, Zorthian posed on the road just inside his gate. He held a baseball bat kept there handy, and squatted menacingly to show how he had confronted a gang of bikers who tried to enter his property. “I have military experience,” he told them, and they turned around and left.

His domain was his kingdom. It said, “Don’t mess with me.”

When his name came up in conversation and people said, remembering the bacchanalian orgies, “Have you been to Zorthian’s Ranch?” and I said, “Yes,” I gained greater credibility in certain parts of the community.

For more photos, and more of the story, I encourage you to read Cathy Hue’s excellent article written for PBS SoCal: https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/artbound/the-enduring-mysteries-of-zorthian-ranch