much like a park community. It consisted of his house, barn, and a guest house for visitors to "enjoy the healthful climate", according to E.S. Newbury. The area was remote and only five families lived in the Conejo Valley at the time, all on large ranch lands. The ranches were miles apart and there were no grocery stores, medical facilities, schools, or churches in the valley. Newbury had acres of wheat and owned thousands of sheep. The weather had a great impact on his health, and he wrote to his sister Kittie in Michigan on November 23, 1874: «take wings and come to Conejo and enjoy our warm bright days all winter... be outdoors instead of confined indoors... I am out all the time and our drives now are just lovely with the country all turning green. The birds stay around our house in flocks all the time... Our roads to the ranch are splendid and they lie through beautiful canyons and large groves of live and white oak and sycamore, then into an open valley with slopes and surrounding hills covered with evergreen oaks...». As a result of the increasing interest in the developing Conejo Valley, Newbury functioned as a public relations representative for the Conejo Valley. On December 25, 1875, E.S. Newbury wrote in the largest newspaper in Ventura County at the time, the Ventura Signal, the following words about Newbury Park: «Next to Ojai and Santa Ana ranchos, the Conejo mountain valley has the best reputation as a health resort. It is well fifteen miles from Port Hueneme. The soil is immensely fertile, producing large crops of wheat and other grain...». Before Newbury Park existed, the Grand Union Hotel provided a stopover for travelers that dates back to 1876. The hotel was operated as a health- and pleasure resort, and provided a rest stop for stagecoach passengers and a gathering place for residents in Newbury Park. The Conejo Valley pioneers were living in rugged individualism, where travelers had to make their journey over the Conejo Grade or Norwegian Grade to reach Camarillo where they could buy groceries. Newbury Park was an older settlement than Thousand Oaks, where people had settled wedged between Borchard lands on the south and Friedrich land on the north. The residents of the Conejo Valley had to travel to Oxnard for high school, burials or for marriages. As inhabitants of the valley had