Strawberry Flats presented yet another mystery in the life of Johnston McCulley. The area is named, apparently, for Strawberry Peak, which stands to the west, but, except for a single sign at the edge of the County offices parking lot, there are no signs that it truly exists.
As we learned later, Strawberry Flats surrounds Twin Peaks and there are numerous rental properties that are managed by the property owners association mentioned in the sign, as well as the many services that would need to be handled in an unincorporated area.
Strawberry Flats is a sparsely populated area of evergreen and oak that is quite similar to many of the mountainous areas of southern California. It snows in the winter and gets fairly hot in the summer. There are many large homes around, many of them gated and standing well off the road. It is a rather desolate area, with the nearest major services a good 20-30 minutes away over mountain roads.
The town of Twin Peaks sits amid Strawberry Flats and is definitely not a center of commerce. There is a small convenience store in town, a post office, some small businesses and the Antler's Inn: a resturant/bar which was originally built in the 20s to serve the intrepid travelers who traveled Highway 189. According to the woman running the store, the area was very quiet and a lot of their business came from people vacationing in the area. When I mentioned Johnston McCulley, she was very interested, but had no idea where he might have lived, nor that he had even lived there.
A person moving to this area in the 30s and 40s must have been in search of solitude, since the many necessities of life, such a groceries, would require quite a trek to obtain. One also must ponder the long drive McCulley had to undertake to reach Hollywood, without the convenience of modern freeways. Maybe he just hung out at The Antler's Inn...
