As the Mountain fire blazed up a Camarillo hillside on Wednesday, Nov. 6, the Parish family lost not only their house, but also a community gathering space and a testament to their own hard work. In 1998, Fawn and Joey Parish built their home on West Highland Drive with the help of their friends.
With unobstructed views of the Conejo Grade and the Channel Islands, and beyond being a residence for Fawn and Joey and their son, the house became a gathering place for their tight-knit community, especially for international students at California State University Channel Islands (CSUCI). Not only did the home itself, built with the couple’s own hands, hold significance for them, so did the land it sat on. “My mom walked up that hill in 1956, pregnant with me, and found a house for sale for $13,500 and my grandfather bought it.
So I am third generation on that land,” Fawn Parish said. “I could point to any part of that house and say, ‘so and so pulled the electricity there’ or ‘so and so did this.’ There’s a lot of beautiful story to that house.
” Fawn, 68, and Joey, 72, heard about the fire from a neighbor and carefully monitored evacuation orders. Fawn recalled feeling like she was going to have to evacuate, even as she heard that the smoke in her area was from a fire in Moorpark, not their immediate area. She encouraged her neighbors to evacuate when she heard that Camarillo Heights, their area, may be in danger.
When it came time to leave, Fawn and Joey left .
