Careening Around in Hamilton Cove

The monkey was sitting on the balcony of his owner’s bone-white seaside residence. He was enjoying the sun, the soft, salty air and the sound of the ocean eight levels below lapping on the shore.

I cannot speak for the monkey, but he probably grew weary of looking at just the white wall, so he jumped on top of it to look down. I know how he felt. Being short often restricts your vision.

No one knows whether he jumped or lost his balance, but he dropped to the balcony below, where a man was reading on a chaise lounge. We can only assume that the surprised man spoke a few crisp words when the monkey landed on him.

The affronted monkey, who had only wanted to see what was on the other side of the wall, again became airborne and landed on the next balcony down.

There he ended in the arms of a woman carrying a bundle of bed linen. She screamed and ran. The monkey chattered and ran through the house, draped in a sheet and tangled in pillowcases.

He went out the front door and encountered his owner, whom he bit just to show what he thought of the lack of stability in her neighbors, who were still whooping and screaming.

Then he started up the hill toward the guard gate, followed by various enthusiasts, some yelling for the monkey and some screaming at him.

He took a sharp right at the guard gate and ran into the hills. He scampered up a tree and settled down to think about his adventure at Hamilton Cove, where quiet and calm are highly thought of and small monkeys wearing pillow-case togas are yelled at.

I heard the story of the monkey when I called Norm Stow, who manages Hamilton Cove on Santa Catalina Island.

Jean Erck and I had just spent three days in the beautiful colony, just around the shoulder of a mountain, past the world-recognized Casino and a five-minute golf cart ride from the time-locked Victorian resort town of Avalon.

We chose a condominium on the top level with a view of the entire paper-white Mediterranean village, each unit topped with a red tile roof and a fat Moorish chimney.

From every part of Hamilton Cove there is a view of the blue, green and purple ocean spreading clear to the Mainland, or as it was known to my husband, Doug, and me, the Big Island.

The illusion of being on a small Greek island with the houses built straight up the hillside as if they were children’s blocks is strong. Even the fragrances are right, the sea and the sharp scent of plants that can live on scant water.

Catalina has had a water supply problem probably as far back as when the Chumash Indians lived here.

When Hamilton Cove construction is finished in 1994, there will be 350 units. The added pull on Catalina’s water supply has inspired the Hamilton Cove developers to join with the Edison Co. to build a desalination plant at Pebbly Beach. This will be the first such plant on the West Coast, they say, and it will supply almost a third of the island’s water.

Edison will operate the plant, which looks like a scramble of tanks and pipes. Without the plant there could be no Hamilton Cove.

Jean and I came from La Quinta in the Coachella Valley to get away from the heat. We decided to rent one of the villas for a couple of days to taste the cool salt air.

About a third of the residents cross the Catalina Channel in their own boats, tie up to one of the Hamilton Cove moorings and then come ashore in their dinghies. There is an 18-hole golf course with a waterfall on a stream, a pond full of Technicolor fish and grass cropped as close as velour.

We tried the croquet court. Croquet is having a renaissance, and I know several groups of young people who are playing killer croquet.

Marty Erck, Jean’s son, and some friends spent a croquet weekend recently, all properly attired in immaculate white. Jean and I played in cool slacks and T-shirts. I am always afraid that if I wear all white, I will look like a mean dietitian instead of a proper lady.

Norm told us about the third annual golf tournament and the tennis matches held on the two tennis courts. I wish we had been there, if only for the movable feast the players were served.

According to Norm, the golf course served hot dogs, grilled hamburgers and beer. The croquet players had Champagne and finger sandwiches--cucumber, I’m sure. And on the tennis courts, guests were served margaritas and miniature tacos to the bright sound of an excellent mariachi. And there was an orchestra playing big band music on the concrete decking in front of the dinghy dock.

There are 40 different floor plans in the development, some with four and five bedrooms. One immense private residence has its own elevator.

Norm says the architect designs the villas to fit the land. The villas are in such demand because there will not be any more development. About 87% of Catalina Island will blessedly remain in its natural state, according to legal arrangements with the Catalina Conservancy.

We were given the use of a golf cart while we were there. That’s how the Cove residents get into Avalon. When a young woman named Daneene brought ours around she asked, “Which one of you will drive?”

Jean said, “Oh, I will. I’ve done it a lot.”

I trustingly got in and we shot across the road in reverse with the speed of light. Just as I thought we were going straight up the bank, she flung it into another gear and we zoomed to the gate.

There, the man raised the gate arm and looked at us as if we were quite mad. Then we roared into town, making great clanking noises and cutting corners as closely as the top-heavy equipage would allow.

I spoke not a word on the way into town because I was trying not to fly out of the thing when my dear friend Leadfoot took the corners. When we reached the place on Crescent Drive where vehicles cannot pass we finally stopped.

“Jean, dear,” I asked, “when did you drive a golf cart before?”

“Oh,” she said, “when I got in it back at our villa.”

I am profoundly grateful that the monkey was not with us.