Carmel Magazine

Carmel Valley Air Park W ith its sublime climate and lifestyle, one would think that just about every desirable piece of prime Carmel Valley property had been developed by now. But a 29-acre plot just above Carmel Valley Village remains open space. Nearby residents use the land as a place of exer- cise for humans, horses and canines and many think of the rectangular grassy field as a public park—although it's actually privately owned. A close look reveals that the middle is a strip of decaying asphalt. At the eastern end, "29"is painted in large block numbers; on the western, "11." Both numbers are cov- ered by a large yellow "X." Those low, wide structures at the northern edge? Aircraft hangars. This is—or was—an aircraft runway. No planes land here now, but once this runway was the centerpiece of a dream. In the late 1930s, brothers Byington and Tyrie Ford hit upon a novel idea: a housing development based around an airstrip that would allow private pilots to land and taxi right up to a hangar integrated into their homes. The Fords believed that mass-production would do for the airplane what their (unrelated) namesake, Henry Ford, had done for the automobile, making flying machines as common as Model Ts. It's widely believed that this was the first time this concept was implemented, but certainly not the last. Now known as "air parks" or "fly-in communities," some 300 are dotted around the nation. A Dream That Never Got Off the Ground B Y M I C H A E L C H AT F I E L D 112 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G / S U M M E R 2 0 1 4 Byington Ford and his brother Tyrie (shown above at left with an unidentified man) hoped to turn a 29-acre Carmel Valley oat field into a sub- division where flyers could land and taxi right up to their homes. It was a unique concept, widely regarded as the first of its kind. Photo: Courtesy Lou Allaire, Carmel Valley/Michael Hemp: Archival and restoration 112-117 Carmel Valley Airpark_152-161 Garcia story 4/25/14 6:04 PM Page 1

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