Welcome to California: Catastrophic but ideal living

Risky: Tenney looks out over his Bluebird Canyon Farms, which sits in an ancient landslide zone in Laguna Beach, California. He bought the land knowing the risks and regularly has to find solutions to keep the soil from eroding. — LAT/TNS

A landslide struck Laguna Beach’s Bluebird Canyon in 1978 – smashing cars, buckling streets and destroying 24 homes. An adjacent swath of earth broke loose in 2005, wiping out 12 more homes.

That wasn’t enough to keep Scott Tenney away. In 2010, Tenney and his wife, Mariella Simon, bought a 6.1-hectare hillside ranch near the disaster area despite the listing warning that the property was on the site of an ancient landslide.