History of Land and People

The DeChambeau Creek Foundation manages 135 acres of private land nestled in the northwestern corner of the Mono Basin at the base of the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada and on the western edge of the Great Basin. Known as Jan’s Place, these 135 acres are one of the wild tangible legacies left by Jan Simis, founder of the DeChambeau Creek Foundation.

At an elevation of 6800’, this land supports a classic mix of modern Great Basin habitat types including Great Basin Sagebrush Steppe, cultivated meadows, and an aspen-willow-cottonwood riparian corridor.

Obsidian arrowheads and bedrock mortars scattered across the land attest to the generations of Native Americans—most recently the Kutzadika’a people—who first settled and continue to inhabit the Mono Basin. Following a pattern of seasonal travel across the landscape, the Kutzadika’a and those before them cultivated and utilized the bounty of the lake—kutzavi or alkali fly pupae—and the land—bulbs, grass seed, pinyon pine nuts, caterpillars, rabbits, deer and antelope—for approximately 10,000 years.

The successive in-migration of western explorers, miners and later farmers and ranchers supplanted these seasonal land use patterns with the static land ownership and development patterns characteristic of the modern American western landscape.

In the early 1880s, the Sylvester family homesteaded fifty acres of the Mono Basin that is now part of Jan’s Place. Thomas and Emma Sylvester farmed this land, growing crops and raising herds of cattle and domestic sheep in the meadows to meet the demand for produce and meat in Bodie and nearby mining towns. Sylvester ranch was noted as having “…good water rights and being set to hay.”[1] Water rights to a portion of DeChambeau Creek as well as Mill Creek, draining Lundy Canyon, were assigned to the property in the 1800s. Historic ditches used to transport water are extensive and indicate the far reaches the homesteaders tried to achieve in cultivation. Thomas and Emma’s son Albert, along with his wife Alice, took over the ranch and developed a strain of superlative potatoes that were said to be foot long. Today, a homestead-style farm cultivated by the Land Stewards continues this land’s long-tradition of feeding people.

In 1958, Albert sold twenty-five acres of the original 50-acre homestead to Jan and her then husband, Charlie Simis, after they noticed a handwritten For Sale sign along the highway. While gravity and time had taken their toll on the old Sylvester homes, Jan and Charlie took on the challenge to raise the better of the two structures, hoisting the cabin walls upright and building up what had fallen. The deteriorated remains of another Sylvester home located within the cottonwood grove were beyond repair and removed by Jan and Charlie. Restoring the old 1880s Sylvester cabin was a labor of love, and Jan added her trademark hand-carved touches and reverence for old wood throughout her home. Jan’s friend Steve installed Mono Mills-era planks onto the interior of the main room which created the final touches of a cabin. The result was a cabin that feels like a step back in time. The land always had a magical effect on Jan. She wrote…. “When I saw it for the first time… I thought it was like a fairyland—and I’ve never changed.” The original historic cabin – the Lower Cabin – still stands near the tall cottonwoods and apple orchard planted by the Sylvesters, as well conifers planted by Jan. Today, this Lower Cabin serves as the home for the Land Stewards entrusted with the direct care of the land.

Ever appreciative of the setting, Jan spent much of her time outdoors observing birds and wildlife, the seasons, and everyday life, surrounded by open meadows and a vast panorama of the Sierra and Mono Lake. In one of her letters she writes, “I just snowshoed up the meadow…down the Juniper Trail. It was not easy going as the snow froze in chunks to the bottoms of the snowshoes. How wonderful it was, though, lots of animal tracks, the sound of the creek. Enough to spoil one forever. Then every day and night does that.”

When Jan first bought the property, domestic sheep grazed every summer on the land until the 1980s when sheep contracts were no longer renewed. Jan sometimes missed the sheep and the presence of the Basque sheepherders who stayed in the nearby Filasena house. The beloved meadows – open vistas afforded by close-cropped grasses and sedges – were originally irrigated and cultivated pastures for livestock. Today, the meadows are maintained by hand through thoughtful irrigation from DeChambeau Creek and ongoing manual brush removal and mowing to prevent encroachment and reversion to willow and sagebrush.

Beginning in 1971, Jan offered her land to friends of friends from Yosemite for camping. A small group stayed in the upper meadow in old canvas tents and worked at the brine shrimp plant, as Jan did. Weekly showers at Jan’s Place brought the group together, and Jan became fast friends with many who stayed in the meadow the next several years. In 1976, a small group of undergraduate researchers made their base camp in the upper meadow after receiving a research grant from the National Science Foundation for an ecological study of Mono Lake. These scientists formed the Mono Lake Research Group, and, inspired by discussions around the campfire at Jan’s Place, the Mono Lake Committee was born. This campsite is still actively managed by the Foundation and enjoyed by students from the University of California Field Quarter and Julia and Lucy Parker’s Basketry Seminar.

Jan, with the support of her brothers, Ted and Doug, purchased the adjacent Brant property in the 1970s, adding 110 acres to the original 25. The Brant parcel was part of the original DeChambeau family homestead with the old DeChambeau home sitting just off the dirt road leading to the upper campsite. Later the DeChambeau family moved to the north shore of Mono Lake where the current DeChambeau Ranch stands. Deeply concerned with the potential for her land to be subdivided and developed, Jan eventually bought out her brothers and consolidated the two parcels into her sole ownership.  When Jan began wintering in Los Angeles, many caretakers/house sitters took care of the cabin in the winter, while in the summer or fall Jan appreciated every moment on her land. “Always, I can’t get over the unique beauty of this high desert world,” she wrote. Jan dutifully took care of her aging mother in Southern California until her mother’s passing in 2002. This restricted her ability to live in Mono Basin as long as she otherwise would have, though she made time to visit her sacred place virtually every year.

Jan never wanted to leave her land. When it snowed, she marveled at what she called the Dr. Zhivago forest to the west. Sometimes when she finally had to leave, the road to her property was buried in several feet of show. Friends helped her depart via snowcat and snowmobile.

The decision to build a new cabin—the Upper Cabin—was a decision that left Jan in “turmoil.” She wrote to a friend, “The moment of truth is upon me and a decision must be made about a new cabin…I’ve put myself through turmoil I honestly like things as they are – the little old shack with semi-wildness all around for all to come to refresh their souls. And the thought of digging up all the boulders that the glacier deposited in that spot, and so disturbing Mother Earth, makes me sick.”

Several factors on the positive side helped her go ahead with the project. One, that she could build a “green” house that would be “…a good example of how to build and live well, as well as one day when I’m no longer there, it could be a scientists – or-whoever – retreat house.” The other, a call from local wood miller, Bob Drake, who eagerly wanted to join the project, made it sound right for Jan. “Having the wood milled right at our doorstep sounds so right.” More signs appeared such as “my finding a tiny, really exquisite white feather lying near the rubble by the new cabin. It was cheerfully saying, ‘Don’t worry, everything will be fine.’”

With a credo of “small is beautiful,” Jan designed her new cabin: small, filled with light and sprinkled with her meticulous handiwork. The cupboard handles are whittled from applewood branches (she literally went out on a limb to collect them). Hanging above the window the hand carved “Forever a Mountaineer” declares her love for high places. Jan gravitated towards recycling old things, and this continued as plans for the new cabin solidified. “I went downtown to two wrecking yards to look at doors. I came home with one, which I hope is OK. French doors…which I think will do…I can’t get away from my cruising the alleys and dumps way of living – just in order to recycle used things. ‘Making do’ has been the Tao. But I’m also having to make do with my body.”

As Jan’s health declined, she still managed to come up most summers, staying as long as she could. With an eye to the future preservation of the property, a Conservation Easement extinguishing most future development opportunities on the land was granted to the Eastern Sierra Land Trust in April 2010 “to maintain the rural and agricultural qualities of the Property and the retention of significant open space for agriculture and other compatible uses.”[2] Additionally, Jan worked with her attorney to establish the DeChambeau Creek Foundation “to ensure the ongoing maintenance and preservation”[3] of the land in May 2010. Her vision was to keep the land as wild as possible and to share it with others. She wanted it to be a place of refuge and learning. A place for solitude and “resorting one’s soul.” Jan established a close-knit founding Board of Directors from her circle of Mono Basin friends to guide the Foundation. Upon her passing on 24 September 2017, ownership of the land transferred to the DeChambeau Creek Foundation along with a portion of her estate assets to support the Foundation’s ongoing work.

[1] McIntosh, F.W., Mono County, California: The Land of Promise for the Man of Industry, 1908

[2] Grant Deed of Conservation Easement, Recorded 26 April 2010

[3] Articles of Incorporation of DeChambeau Creek Foundation, 5 May 2010