Buying a Garden of Eden

I was riding down the freeway when I heard on the radio that this little place I'd never heard of was for sale, and the Lord made it known to me that this is where we should go and do his work. The "little place" that the Rev.

Alvin Stevens heard about was the entire town of Bridgeville, Calif., all 80 acres and 25 buildings of it.

Stevens sped 330 miles north of San Francisco for a look and immediately fell in love with the region, its mist-shrouded forests and trout-filled streams. This would be an ideal spot to raise families, Stevens decided, and to care for the elderly poor, who "live worse than hogs many places." The price for Bridgeville was $450,000, with $150,000 down. Drawls Stevens: "It could have been $1,000. We didn't have the money."

A Mess. Stevens, 48, a onetime construction worker from Oklahoma, took his dream to the folk at Stonybrook Full Gospel Temple down in Fremont, a Pentecostal church that he had scraped together. After a prayer meeting, five of the 70-odd parishioners agreed to sell their houses to make up half the down payment. The other half is due in August; then come stiff monthly payments.

Last week 48 church members arrived at their newly bought Eden--and found, as often happens with Edens, that the place was a mess. The town had started as a stagecoach stop, reached a peak population of 300 in 1939 when logging companies were cutting near by, but slumped to 100 by the time a wealthy Los Angeles widow named Elizabeth Lapple bought the place in 1973. She wanted it as a commune for her hippie children and their hangers-on. As the former residents moved out, marijuana began to sprout in the yards and rock music echoed through the forests. Within a few years, Bridgeville had turned into a rural slum in the middle of God's country. Wrecked cars now lie forlornly about. The main water system and septic tanks are broken, as are the toilets in apartments underneath a sagging pink dance hall. "This used to be a great, far-out place, lots of parties and no hassle," said Rabbit, one of the final dozen hippies who last week evacuated their grimy quonset hut on the edge of town. He added: "I don't see how the ole reverend is goin' to make it."

The reverend is not sure either. He eschews government aid, and is begging money from every friend made in 22 years of preaching, for he believes that "some way God will provide." The parishioners, who set up a three-member town board, have the skills to rebuild the place, he explains. A store and restaurant will raise capital. The refurbished Country Cafe is already open, complete with no-smoking signs, five paintings of Jesus, and delicious homemade pies. Martha Morris, 27, cleaning up heaps of reeking garbage at her new home, knows that her husband has no job and unemployment is high in the area, but she believes that "the Lord didn't bring us up here to starve to death."

The old stagecoach barn is to become the church, but at the moment it is rafter high with refuse. So last week's inaugural service had to be held in the general store, which is full of abandoned electrical equipment. The new settlers, accompanied by banjo, piano and two guitars, belted out a new hymn for the occasion, written to the tune of Okie from Muskogee:

I'm proud to be a Christian in

Bridgeville, A place where repentant sinners

can have a ball.

We don't smoke marijuana in

Bridgeville.

As a matter of fact, we don't

smoke at all.

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