The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 107

REAL ES WE Cos Angclce Sanies Homes and Industry Sunday, March 17, 1985 Part VI Art of Dowsing is Not Dead Psychic Locates Land Assets Dick Turpin Transfers: It May Be Wife on the Move (extrasensory perception) assistance to law enforcement agents in cases of theft, robbery and homicide. To demonstrate to an interested visitor how he works, a field trip to Hesperia was planned by one of his clients, Dr. Dolores Fisher, a Los Angeles physician who has used Warmoth's services on several occasions to determine whether certain properties under consideration were worth purchasing. Warmoth and the doctor wanted the reporter to experience the vigorous tugging of a forked stick held firmly in the hands, to help understand the scope and enduring fascination of such an experience. A desert property where Fisher has built a weekend retreat was selected.

The land there sparkles like an emerald patch on the semi-arid landscape the result of abundant water supply located by War- By EVELYN De WOLFE Einstein is said to have dabbled in dowsing, soldiers have been known to use coat hangers to detect enemy mines, and now it appears that real estate investors are gravitating to dowsing techniques. This ancient practice may well be the most common and accepted part of the psychic field because it shows results on a fairly consistent basis. For Ron Warmoth, a recent trip to the high desert above Hespe-ria to locate underground springs, possibly ore andor natural gas on a property purchased by a client-was all in a day's work. The mild-mannered Los Angeles-based psychic, who has been dowsing professionally for 15 years and prefers to maintain a low-key business image, is considered unusual in the field because he is interested only in the practical applications of his psychic abilities. Dispel Hocus-Pocus He cannot say with certainty why or how dowsing works, but he would like to help dispel the hocus-pocus aspects of his work.

He attributes no magical powers whatsoever to forked sticks or the assortment of Y-shaped rods, pendulums and other props normally associated with divining techniques, though on occasion he does use some of these props as aids to concentration. "One problem with being a dowser," Warmoth said, "is that the field has been open to crackpots and self-deluded individuals misguided by a false sense of power." Warmoth claims that dowsing, though traditionally associated with "water witching," is used successfully in locating archaeological finds and in making predictions for business expansion. His own experience also includes ESP moth. "Ron located several potential drilling sites on this property, and the water I get from the wells is ample to carry out my plans for the cultivation of tree crops," she said. In addition to her interest in agriculture, Fisher is experimenting with wind power conversion to electrical power and other energy-saving devices.

"Yes, I do give a lot of credence to psychic phenomena but I judge psychics only on the quality of their work ability," she said, adding that ESP is now "well beyond the kindergarten stage. But, unfortunately, the dowser's image is not benign because the field has attracted scores of fraudulent people." When people accept decisions made for them by computers, they are sort of doing the same thing as people who use dowsing services, she remarked. Warmoth's batting average for his brand of prospecting is about 95 correct. An Inner Library Warmoth likens dowsing to doing research in one's inner library. "Dickens and Edison are said to have used this technique (sometimes referred to as the Universal Life Force) in their creative process," Warmoth noted.

"One popular theory on why it happens," Warmoth speculated, "is that one can tap into the electromagnetic forces of the brain much like one turns on the ignition in a car. The car is the vehicle that gets you somewhere, but you still have to be able to drive it. "There seems to be a shift of consciousness when this happens, an altered state. Perhaps it can best be explained through electronics. The human brain is the most powerful energy-generator Please see DOWSER, Page 10 SMR OPENINGS Brandywine Chmo homes, $11 1,950 to $123,950.

Story on Page 8 MissionWood Sepulveda town houses, $85,900 to $110,900. Story on Page 13 Royal View Canoga Park homes, $192,950 to $238,900. Story on Page 14 Stonebridge Moreno Valley homes, $73,950 to $96,950. Story on Page 16 Other openings, Page 20. i Usually, when a company transfers one of its employees to another area, it's the man of the household who is asked to make the move.

Now there is a new twist to that traditional condition. Current data indicates that in one of every nine two -career families involved in moving to another city, the transfer is offered to the female and the male becomes the displaced spouse. You can guess where all this might lead by noting that 60 of all working families in the nation today have two incomes, according to the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The bureau predicts that figure will increase to 75 in five years. Wives' Careers If that holds true, the careers of more wives could determine if the family moves or where it moves. Or you could argue that the wife makes those decisions regardless, couldn't you? The Chicago-based RELOIn-ter-City Relocation Service, the nation's largest referral network of independent real estate brokers, is very much aware and concerned with this evolving change. It currently is observing its 25th year in this specialty field and realizes that a significant change is developing in the work place. "This phenomenon is increasing the trauma of a move for two -career families and creating a very real need for those in the real estate profession to expand the range of real estate services they provide," says the network's president, Joanne Langs-ton.

More Assistance Increasing numbers of the organization's 1,100 members are offering "spouse and job counseling," in addition to the normal activities of relocation helping the family move, finding rental housing or arranging financing for buying a home in the new city and renting or selling off the house in the old city. Such matters as day-care centers, schools and community services in the new city often left to the wife to explore are Please see TURPIN, Page 8 DICK BIEGERT Dr. Dolores Fisher, left, gets pointers on dowsing from psychic prospector Ron Warmoth during field trip in the High Desert where Fisher has purchased property for tree crop cultivation. City Adjusts to Future With Timely Changes mwmk Mem i '-mm I ft; if -4 pi, 7f nffi TY, i By RUTH RYON, Times Staff Writer "Watch us We're Chang-ing. The sign brings smiles in the city hall of Paramount, located about 15 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, because the changes in this town of 40,000 residents are vast and visible.

John H. Baker, vice president of the Newport Beach architectural and planning firm of McLellan Cruz Gaylord Associates, suggested just how extensive the changes are when he said, "Now when you drive down some of the streets here, it looks like somebody dropped a bomb." It's true. There are some large stretches of vacant lots where substandard structures have been cleared away in readiness for new development, but there are also a lot of new and recently renovated buildings and construction under way. Since 1983, when the city hired McLellan Cruz Gaylord as architects for redevelopment of its central business district, the firm has been involved in more than 70 projects in Paramount. Richard R.

Powers, director of community development, estimated retail and commercial projects under construction to be "in the Please see CHANGE, Page 14 Marble-floored atrium in The Promenade, 30 and 18-foot feet wide and 22 feet high, contains planters it in former Old Department Store Converted to Offices Former Ohrbach's in Miracle Mile Turned Into Two-Story Suites Around an Atrium By TERENCE M. GREEN, Times Staff Writer iiDl North Star development adjacent to Marina del Rey features Country French architecture. Goden Touch Along the Silver Strand Marina Developer Pays Strict Attention to the Details trees. Two-story offices overlook Ohrbach's store on Miracle Mile. though they felt the surrounding neighborhood could not support more retail stores or to tear it down and build something new.

They did none of these things. Today, three years later, the old store is The Promenade, where two-story office suites surround a two-story, 22-foot-high, 30-foot-wide atrium with gardens, marble floor and 18-foot-tall trees, The imaginative architects, Swimmer, Cole, Martinez, Curtis Associates, carried out Snyder's conception of up-and-down office space to maximize available space and to "accommodate a different type of tenant than those occupying the office tower." For example, an option is an interior staircase giving an air of grace and elegance to a suite. One of the available spaces has its own private circular motor court, with parking just outside its main door. The smallest office space is 5,000 square feet and the largest 20,000 square feet, with windows looking out onto the greenery of the central atrium. A tenant may, if he wishes, take more space on the larger second floor than on the ground floor.

Cliff Spangler, director of marketing for The Promenade and the other SnydcrOgo project next door, Museum Square, said, "With a pre -lease rate of $1.85 a square foot for the first level and $1.35 a Please see OFFICES, Page 13 Union Pacific on New Track to High Profits By EVELYN De WOLFE Union Pacific a giant among the nation's major land holders, owns 1.3 million acres of land and about seven acres of mineral rights. Almost without exception, its development of some of that land, occupied mainly by warehouses and served by the Union Pacific's vast, railroad system, has been geared toward industrial purposes, Until recently, that is. For even giants must bend to changes in the marketplace. Upmost in the mind of L. B.

Harbour Jr. who heads Upland Industries the real estate and land development arm of Union Pacific, has been the most efficient and most profitable use of 21,000 acres that are adjacent to major metropolitan areas in 21 states and that constitute Union Pacific's prime parcels. Harbour's zealous eye has watched prime land become scarce and of much higher value. "There also has been a staggering growth In high-technology industries here and in other sections of California, New England and the Southwest," Harbour said. "More and more businesses are now using the piggyback system to transport their goods, trucking trailers directly to the customers' premises, thus eliminating the need for spur tracks and warehouse distribution centers.

Consequently, Please tee RAILROAD, Page 18 "What the hell do we do with Builder J. H. Snyder's reaction was understandable. He was looking at a cavernous 90,000 square feet of former Ohrbach's Miracle Mile department store interior, decorated with dust and furnished with old records and files heaped floor to ceiling. The two-story, concrete and steel building had no outside windows except a few show windows along Wilshire Boulevard.

A more unprepossessing prospect would be hard to find. It is connected to the adjoining 10-story tower now called Museum Square, formerly the Prudential Insurance Co. building, which the J. H. Snyder Co.

and Ogo Associates have revamped into a modern office building. The records and files were left from the time Prudential used the old store as a warehouse. The immediately apparent options were unexciting at best: to develop a new kind of warehouse spacej to chance some kind of ground-floor retail operation al- By DAVID M. KINCHEN, Times Staff Writer It's too bad that the advertising slogan that begins with "Nobody sweats the details like is already taken: Clifford D. Rome would certainly qualify.

Rome, the 30-year-old president of Clifford D. Rome Associates 4015 Via Dolce, Marina del Rey, is the kind of nitpicker with whom the buyers of his custom homes near the marina can identify. After all, he reasons, anybody who shells out half a million dollars or more for a home on a -foot lot they're three-story houses has a right to expect the highest quality materials and workmanship. His North Star development features 16 Country French-style houses on Northstar Court off Via Dolce in Los Angeles, adjacent to Marina del Rey. The two-block-widc, 10-block long area is called the Silver Strand and about 220 houses by various builders are expected to be built there.

(A story on the saga of the Silver Strand development, originally carved out by Venice's founder, Abbott Kinney, in 1906, ran in this section June 24, 1984.) Of the 13 homes under construction by the Rome company, eight are in North Star, three are on a nearby lagoon, one is a New England-style house and the other is a contemporary house designed by Marshall Lewis. "Contemporary houses appeal to a select group of people, but if you're building a development, traditional houses like those in North Star appeal to a wider market," Rome said. "Traditional houses especially ours designed by Ade Collie and Tom Boyle offer a wealth of texture and detailing that appeals to high-income home buyers." Architectural features include hand-fired and molded brick, copper rain gutters and downspouts, three different types of stone trim for the houses and patio walls and thatched roof details on two of the houses. That's right, thatched roofs, Just like those in England! Not quite. This thatch roofing system, by Warwick Cottage Enterprises, Anaheim, has received a Class A fire rating from the Council of Building Officials, which includes the Whittier-based International Conference of Building Officials, the building code governing the West.

Wes Warwick of Warwick Cottage Enterprises, has also received the Class A fire rating irom the tough Los Angeles Building Safety Department. "Nothing in these homes is ordinary, from the $1,700 lintel over the wider-than-usual front door to the traditional architectural style, the first time Please see STRAND, Page 12 INDEX Classes Lectures 19 Home Improvement 2,1 Hot Property 2 People on the Move 21 Southland Openings 20.