Paige Barnes: A Rustic Canyon Park Treasure
By Laurel Busby
News & Information Editor
During the Palisades Fire, Rustic Canyon Recreation Center became a command center for government agencies ranging from the L.A. Fire Department to the FBI, Senior Facilities Manager Paige Barnes said.
Initially, the fire was still burning, and the center had no electricity, which meant both lights and heating were off, Barnes said. Still, the first responders were working to both put out the fire, and agencies like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fireamrs and Explosives, were trying to discover what caused it. Throughout, Barnes and her staff strove to be of service.
“I’m generally good in an emergency; whenever there is a disaster, I want to know how I can help,” said Barnes, noting that the city’s rec centers are vital community hubs during challenging times. “We’re cooling centers too. We’re constantly morphing to satisfy the needs of the community.”
The community’s needs for Rustic Canyon Recreation Center tend to be a little unusual, Barnes said. The center has a hidden quality that makes it feel almost like an extension of neighbors’ backyards, rather than a pulsing hotbed of athletic activity like many other L.A. recreation centers, which tend to be located on busy city roads rather than beneath the trees along a winding canyon.
“It’s the best kept secret,” Barnes, 54, said. “They call Rustic Canyon a jewel, and when you have a jewel, you try to treat it like a precious gem. We want to keep it intimate, precious, and special.”
As much as possible, the tennis courts are kept open for the community, instead of being rented out, so that people can wander by and play a game if they wish. PaliHi also uses the courts after school for their tennis season.
Around 20 people work at the center as instructors, and there are six part-time employees in addition to Barnes, the center’s only full-time employee. Barnes began working for the L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks in 1997, a year after graduating from North Carolina Central University with a degree in dramatic literature with a concentration in directing.
A Valley girl whose father, Ernie Barnes, was a well-known artist who did pieces for the television show, Good Times, a Marvin Gaye album, and the L.A. Olympics, Barnes found that the mix of activities at Rec & Parks were a perfect match for her desire to delve into varied and interesting work. She started as a coordinator, and then became a facilities director at first Van Nuys Recreation Center and then Branford Recreation Center, before coming to Rustic Canyon in 2016. She also currently oversees Crestwood Hills Recreation Center in Brentwood.
Through this work, her interest in directing found an outlet in orchestrating holiday shows and other events, while she’s also had the chance to teach some of her favorite subjects, such as singing and cooking.
“The job grows with you,” Barnes said. “[It] can be what you need it to be…. A friend got into Zumba, so she taught Zumba and got to her goal weight doing her job and bringing the community right along with her.”
Barnes works closely with many residents, such as The Canyon Alliance President Eric Balfour, who is also the president of the park’s advisory board, which will hold its next meeting on Sept. 23 at 6 p.m. The meeting, which is open to the public, will occur in the gentleman’s library, a cozy space that was remodeled in the spirit of the Uplifters Club, one of the park’s previous owners before The Canyon Alliance (under its former name—Santa Monica Canyon Civic Association) purchased the property in 1953 and donated it to the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks.
For Barnes, the board and the advocacy of residents is a vital part of her work, because community voices often carry more weight with park management than her voice. Also, because the city oversees so many parks, some projects, such as replacing the playground’s sand, take much longer than community members might prefer, because the endeavors tend to be done through group purchases in order to get the best prices, which takes extra planning.
Balfour noted that Barnes has great persistence in her efforts to achieve community goals.
“There is so much bureaucracy in our city,” he said. “It would be very easy for her to throw her hands up in the air and say … ‘What do you want me to do?’ And she doesn't. She never gives up. She never stops. And we're just so grateful to her.” He added, “Paige has made the job of running the park so much more than just being a park administrator. She loves our park. She loves our community. She plans these incredible events for the kids in the neighborhood, whether it be at Christmas time, Halloween, or Easter, and she truly cares about this neighborhood.”
This year Barnes has been working to enhance the youth athletic offerings at the park by providing basketball for children 3-8 years old and girls volleyball for 7-15 year olds, but so far, there haven’t been enough registrants to get the programs going. Mixed media and art for youth are other offerings that she hopes can attract young people. The most popular programs currently are both ceramics and the 50 and older programs, while youth tennis also has had consistent attendance.
Another fun endeavor involves canine visitors to the park. Each one gets a dog treat, and Barnes and the staff enjoy getting to know their four-legged friends. In the months after the fire, she missed not only human visitors, but dogs like Jalapeño and Cinderella, who were no longer able to stop by on their daily walks.
Because so many neighbors took months to return to the Canyon, “there was a loneliness” when people first began trickling back, Barnes said. “The community was grieving. We were all grieving together.”
Another change since the fire has been the addition of a notebook in her office with the results of the park’s pollutant testing, she said. Anyone in the community is welcome to come and read the book, although it’s too long for her to provide a copy to take home.
According to the tests, “there was not anything that was harmful that required immediate removal,” Barnes said. “It’s a big fat notebook of several hundred pages.”
Since the fire, attendance at park events has been somewhat less than it was previously, especially for the spring egg hunt. However, summer camp attendance was fairly strong, Barnes said. She has high hopes for the haunted house for Halloween, which she has already begun building, and she’s also planning December festivities, which she hopes will include not only hot cocoa, ornament making, and a parking lot train, but snow.
In addition to traditional classes and events, sometimes the park hosts ballet recitals or special classes, such as knitting by the fire in the gentleman’s library. Creative Arts Theatre Space also has regularly rehearsed plays, such as Rent, at the center. For Barnes, that variety provides both fun and novelty in her work life.
“It’s such a wonderful job, and I’m filled with more gratitude than anything to be a part of something so human and magnificent,” she said. “It is the best job ever.”
Rustic Canyon Recreation Center is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. The center is open by permit only on Sundays. Contact: 310-454-5734 or rusticcanyon.rc@lacity.org.
