The issue of eminent domain continues to be the subject of heated debate: progress versus preservation, the benefit of the many at the cost of the few, the rights of the county over the rights of the individual. However, in the case of the ill-fated Hollywood Museum, there was no debate; the county invoked its power and the individual had no say. In 1963, a group of motion picture industry heavyweights headed by Sol Lesser, Gregory Peck, Mary Pickford, and Walt Disney, decided to create a museum showcasing the history of movies, radio, and television to be located across the street from the Hollywood Bowl. The land at Alta Loma Terrace and Fairfield Avenue was already a developed lot with quaint "storybook cottage" style houses dotting the hillside, but the powerful museum committee still managed to convince the County to use eminent domain to force the homeowners out and bulldoze the area. All but one accepted the low-ball settlement offers. Bartender and former marine Steven Anthony lived with his wife and three children at 6655 Alta Loma Terrace, and he wasn't buying the line that a museum celebrating the entertainment industry was an essential and necessary service to the community. Brandishing a shotgun, he kept the sheriff's deputies at bay for several weeks amidst the rubble of his neighbors' homes. Finally, on April 13, 1964, as a last-ditch ruse to get Anthony out, undercover sheriff's deputies, posing as fellow marines sympathetic to his cause, gained entry into the house and immediately arrested Anthony on an 8-year-old traffic warrant. Moments later, deputies lying in wait swarmed the house and removed its contents. Anthony returned the next morning out on bail just in time to watch his house being torn down. As for the "essential and necessary" Hollywood Museum, mismanagement of funds, lack of organization and internal squabbling caused the project to be abandoned, and the site that was once a picturesque hillside community became what the county supervisors actually wanted all along: increased parking space for the Hollywood Bowl.
