Redwood forest once owned by the 'King Tut of Hoarders' is added to famed Santa Cruz Mountains state park

A 153-acre property in the Santa Cruz Mountains that gained national notoriety after its former owner piled up more than 50 junk cars, old school buses, boats, rusting engine parts and mountains of other debris and refused authorities’ efforts to remove the mess is now part of one of California’s most storied state parks.

The wooded landscape, located near Boulder Creek along Highway 236 at the eastern edge of Big Basin Redwoods State Park, has been cleaned up, purchased by the state and added to Big Basin Redwoods State Park, state parks officials announced Thursday.

Under the deal, the state Department of Parks and Recreation paid $2.4 million for the land, known as the NoraBella property, to Sempervirens Fund, a Los Altos-based environmental group that acquired it for the same price in 2022.

The purchase is the first expansion since 2011 of Big Basin, a park established in 1902 and beloved by generations of visitors for its old-growth redwood trees, some of which are 2,000 years old and tower more than 250 feet tall.

Parks officials said the new property is a key piece as they rebuild the facilities at Big Basin, which was devastated by the CZU Lightning Fire in 2020. That fire destroyed the 1930s-era visitor center, campgrounds, gift shop, museum, amphitheater, electrical system, bridges, ranger housing and other facilities.

As part of the rebuilding effort, state parks leaders decided to construct a new visitor center, parking lots and other features on the park’s eastern edge — as a way to protect the oldest redwoods in the park’s center — at a place called Saddle Mountain and have visitors ride shuttle buses in during busy weekends. The property purchased Thursday is adjacent to Saddle Mountain. Parts of it will be use to replace ranger housing, staff parking and utilities that burned, parks officials said.

“Big Basin is California’s oldest state park, and this keystone expansion will help accelerate the park’s recovery from the devastating 2020 CZU wildfire,” State parks director Armando Quintero said. “NoraBella is the gateway into Big Basin and will serve as a world-class entrance to the park’s new visitor center for generations to come.”

The land has a checkered history.

At the turn of the twentieth century, loggers clear cut nearly all of its ancient redwood trees. Many grew back amid creeks and canyons in the area. Then came the debris.

“It is a really important story of recovery and resilience,” said Sara Barth, executive director of Sempervirens Fund. “This property went through clearcutting, junk yard status and a wildfire. Now it’s in the place it deserves to be — a state park. The forest looks great. You can see it recovering.”

In 1984, it was purchased by Roy Kaylor, a Stanford-trained electrical engineer and eccentric inventor from Menlo Park who spent his life tinkering with circuits, machines, and gadgets. Kaylor began moving dozens of vehicles there. Many had broken windows, were missing parts and were rusted, with soaked interiors from rain storms. He added broken bicycles, wrecked motorcycles, old toilets, buckets, mildewed toys and clothes, even a dilapidated San Francisco muni bus.

In 2006, the Santa Cruz County Planning Department ordered him to clean up the property. He refused.

By 2010, the county took the case to court, accusing him of creating a public nuisance and health hazard. County officials said liquids from the vehicles, acid from batteries and other materials were causing pollution. Shady characters were coming and going, sometimes dumping debris, they said.

“It was amazing,” former Santa Cruz County Supervisor Bruce McPherson said in a 2022 interview. “This guy was the King Tut of hoarders.”

In 2011, Kaylor and his ramshackle forest were featured on an episode of the national TV show “Hoarders.”

In 2012, a judge ruled in favor of the county and put the property into receivership. For years, Kaylor appealed and fought a separate battle with another man who claimed a financial interest on the land. Overseen by the court, crews were hired to haul away the junk.

Finally, in 2019, after a 13-year-long legal battle, the court approved the sale of the land for $1.3 million to Colby Barr, co-founder of Verve Coffee Roasters, a Santa Cruz business.

From the sale proceeds, Kaylor eventually paid not only for the cleanup, but also $12,500 in fines, and an additional $12,081 to cover the costs of county planning department staff. He then moved to Grants Pass, Oregon.

The CZU fire in 2020 burned through the property but not as intensely as in some parts of Big Basin. After the blaze, Barr, who also did additional cleanup and restoration on the land, said he wanted to see it preserved in perpetuity and sold the land to Sempervirens Fund, which has preserved redwood forests since 1900. The property is named after Barr’s two grandmothers.

State parks, which has purchased very little new property in the last decade anywhere in California, used money from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, which comes from offshore oil drilling royalties, along with state general funds, to complete the purchase from Sempervirens.

“I would characterize it as kind of a happy ending,” Kaylor, now 87, said in 2022 when the Sempervirens Fund first acquired the land. “I lost a lot of money. I had antique cars, race cars, that kind of thing that I lost. I got no return on the investments in the collections of things that I had. But if it becomes part of Big Basin State Park, I can live with that.”

The steeper and more scenic parts of the property might also be used for trails to connect the new visitors center to other parts of the park, Barth said. Big Basin reopened to the public in 2022. State parks officials last year released their plans to rebuild its campgrounds and other facilities.

They said Thursday that they expect this year to finish a facilities management plan, amendments to the park’s general plan, and other documents, which will allow them to design the new visitor center, campgrounds and other facilities and begin rebuilding. The fire killed Douglas fir trees across the park. But nearly all of the massive redwoods survived.

“The park looks and feels different,” Barth said. “But’s its great. The old growth trees are still there. A lot of the greenery is back. It’s not as cathedral-like as it once was in some places. But it is still inspiring.”