MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH...

By JOSEPH WAMBAUGH

About 70 years ago, a Santa Fe railroad baron got an idea to create a 6,000-acre worker settlement in the gentle hills of north San Diego County, just far enough from the ocean to avoid morning fog and chill. His second idea was to plant thousands of fast-growing eucalyptus trees for later use as railroad ties, but it was to be the automobile and not the train that defined California. The railroad languished, but the eucalyptus--as hard and brittle as a tycoon's heart--thrived, and soon there was enough to feed half the koalas in Australia. Those towering trees came to shelter the secluded bedroom community of Rancho Santa Fe, the oldest of its kind in California and one of the wealthiest in the nation.

The Ranch, as homeowners call their community of 5,000, is about as private as a residential enclave can be without guarded kiosks. In fact, residents have their own private police force, hired to augment the county sheriffs, who cannot provide enough visible patrol to satisfy property owners.

The business district, called the Village, comprises a gas station so pricey it might as well charge by the liter, a post office where folks meet because there is no mail delivery to intrude on privacy, an antiques shop, banks, brokerage houses and real estate offices. To the east is Chino's Farms, where the produce has more Mercedes-Benz queued up than a tollgate on the Autobahn.

As a wateringhole, the Village features Mille Fleurs, the best restaurant in the San Diego area, and during the Del Mar horse-racing season the wagering crowd flocks to the Village for dinner. A surprising number of visiting celebrities are Washington politicians, no doubt following the money. In Rancho Santa Fe nobody would ever think of asking for their autographs or disrupting their privacy, which probably disappoints them, truth be told.

Since the terrible mass suicide, the media have been referring to the Heaven's Gate residence as a mansion. But around these parts they call it affordable housing. An average homesite in the Ranch consists of about three acres of land, and many homes are far grander than the one in which the cybercultists shed their earthly containers. A lot of Rancho Santa Fe's estates are large enough to provide pasture for quarter horses, polo ponies, jumpers and Thoroughbreds. Streets are without curbing, and there are no lights on the winding lanes, trails and roads. At night, other than the occasional cries of coyotes, it is quiet.

Now, alas, the world's media have descended in swarms. They have come in vans, trucks and helicopters. They have demolished the tranquillity and lit up the sky. The media hordes are interviewing everyone. Diners are being harassed and interrogated. Golfers are being interrupted midswing by clicking Nikons and questions. Soccer moms are forced to scoop up their kids and run for their Volvos. They are interrogating non-English speaking gardeners. They have questioned equestrians at the Polo Club. They have questioned horses at the Polo Club. A German journalist was seen interviewing a pot of geraniums at the local library. Finally, they have even resorted to interviewing each other! The geraniums were probably more informative.

One might assume that Rancho Santa Fe residents are stunned and horrified by the events in the house on Colina Norte, and of course they are. They are even more appalled by the media locusts lurking behind every bougainvillea. And as soon as the residents learned that the suicide victims were only renters, not property owners, they started asking questions of their own in answer to media inquiries. Such as: How did 39 people get to rent a house that's zoned for a single family? How could the cybercult operate its Higher Source computer service without a business permit? This in a private residence that by definition cannot be used as a business in the first place. This in a community where property owners cannot paint the exterior of their homes without approval of an "Art Jury."

These are the burning questions on the minds of Ranch folks as they flee correspondents using the mass suicide to write oxymoronic treatises on "California Culture." So when the sheriff released the video of all those corpses in Nike sneakers, the peevish locals said, "Well, you know Nike's slogan, don't you? Just do it."

The events on Colina Norte have already lost their resonance in Rancho Santa Fe, at least among frazzled residents who look upon the bizarre incident as an aberration that has nothing to do with them. The only question homeowners are asking themselves these days is: When the hell are all these people leaving?

JOSEPH WAMBAUGH, whose latest novel, Floaters, will be published in paperback next week, is a former resident of Rancho Santa Fe.