Part of the old Camarillo State Hospital, this complex housed hospital staff.  Since the closing of the hospital, most of these buildings have been demolished.  I was lucky enough to visit them once while they were still intact, though I definitely found them overgrown and abandoned.

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'The Homes'

Shoot Date: 21 March 2003

ABOVE: Someone who works at CSUCI had told me about this cluster of buildings and that they were photogenic, so one Sunday my daughter and I hiked out to see them.  They sat at the end of a small valley, alone and populated only by birds.  Here you can see a central courtyard in the campus's signature Mexican colonial style.

AT RIGHT: western-most edge of the complex, with its typical  tile roofs, whitewashed walls and decorative balconies.

Everything was very quiet, sunny and warm with birds busy in bushes and tree branches.  A sense of history pervaded the place.

AT LEFT: a window hidden behind overgrown tree branches and shrubbery.

ABOVE: passageway between structures, with a balcony visible on the upper floor of the building on the left.

ABOVE: a view of the valley beyond the Homes, a string of volcanic peaks covered, in the spring, with wildflowers and cactus blooming between the chaparral.  The traffic circle in the foreground is part of a new road through the valley put in by CSUCI.

AT RIGHT: passageway between two buildings.  The courtyards were full of overgrown, red-blooming Cape honeysuckle, huge 4 ft. tall succulents and carpets of yellow mustard in bloom.