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The Save Mount Diablo organization has acquired the 10-acre Balcerzak Inholding property, east of Mount Diablo State Park’s Curry Point.
The nonprofit conservation group said in a release last week it bought the property for $1,075,000. It closed escrow on Aug. 8.
The Balcerzak Inholding is a small knoll with steep slopes, nestled in an extremely rugged side canyon dropping from Knobcone Point into Curry Canyon, east of the State Park’s Curry Point. It includes a log cabin house and other structures.
“It is a major deal acquiring and protecting one of the few remaining private land inholdings within Mount Diablo State Park,” said Ted Clement, SMD’s executive director, in a statement.
“It is even more significant when you consider the time pressure and competition we had to face when the property was put on the market, and we were working to try and secure what had been an at-risk and beautiful inholding threatening Mount Diablo State Park,” Clement said. “We are already working with our valued agency partners, California State Parks and the East Contra Costa County Habitat Conservancy, to get this land added to Mount Diablo State Park as soon as they can. Our terrific donors have also been reaching out to help us.”
The group said the Balcerzak Inholding property was listed on a Monday and the SMD team lined up board approval, secured a loan, and took other steps to be in the running for this land acquisition opportunity within a few days.
The 20,000-acre Mount Diablo State Park has five inholdings — private land surrounded by public land. The group said inholdings are a unique opportunity for the landowner: isolation, views and spectacular beauty surrounded by nature but with special challenges including fires, floods, wildlife, privacy concerns and public recreational use.
“From a park agency’s perspective, private properties within parks create management challenges, impact resources and can conflict with recreational use,” the organization said in its statement. The Balcerzak Inholding includes a large log cabin house, barns and outbuildings as well as four converging stream canyons and black oaks, blue oaks, chaparral, and fire adapted knobcone pine woodland, near SMD’s 1,080 Curry Canyon Ranch property.
Reaching three miles up a steep dirt road from Morgan Territory Road near Clayton, as well as several fords of Curry Creek, the property is closer to Blackhawk and Danville. There is not a more isolated house in a more isolated canyon on all of Mt. Diablo, the group said.
“Curry Canyon’s side canyons are incredible,” said Seth Adams, SMD’s land conservation director. “We did our due diligence, but we could have practically bought this property sight unseen. We knew from our Curry Canyon Ranch property just how rich the biodiversity is–we’ve recorded over 800 species of wildlife there.
“There are big rocky sandstone cliffs, knobcone pine forest just above the property and cultural sites nearby. This inholding has been affecting hundreds of acres of the State Park. We’re reassembling a gorgeous natural landscape.”
The property was originally part of the six-lot Mann subdivision. “Backhoe Bob” Balcerzak purchased one of the lots in 1984 and built a large log cabin. In the 1960s Mt. Diablo State Park acquired part of the Blackhawk Ranch and expanded the park east down Curry Canyon from Curry Point and the Knobcone Point ridge.
Later, five of the Mann parcels were purchased by the state in 1986 and 1987, completely encircling Balcerzak. Bob Balcerzak passed away in September 2022 and his wife, Barbara Ackerman, put the property on the market in June.
SMD says several new trail loops could be opened from the park across Curry Canyon Ranch. SMD said it needs to raise at least $500,000 and hopefully more for the Balcerzak land acquisition project, for which SMD acquired a loan.
The land also needs a considerable amount of work, SMD said.
“Our stewardship volunteers love this kind of project,” said Sean Burke, the group’s land programs director. “We will spend hundreds of hours beautifying and healing this magical canyon.”
