A good two miles of chute. At the bottom was flat green patchwork centered by a diamond-bright aquamarine lake. The lake was amorphous-too perfectly shapeless, it shouted man-made. Two golf courses hugged the water, one on each side, fringed by lime-colored trees with feathery tops- California peppers. Red-topped houses were grouped in premeditated plots. Spanish tile on cream stucco, interspersed with trapezoids of green. The entire layout-maybe five miles wide-was outlined in white, as if drawn by a child too fearful to go outside the lines.

As I got closer I saw that the white was waist-high beam-and-post fencing. An exact duplicate of the "planned community" sign appeared a hundred yards later, over a smaller plaque that said Bunker Protection patrolled the premises.

No gates, just a flat, clean road into the development. Fifteen MPH speed limit and warnings to watch for slow-moving golf carts. I obliged and crawled past stretches of perfect rye grass. Lots more pepper trees, shaggy and undulating, sub-planted with beds of multicolored impatiens.

A thousand feet in, another dozen signs on a stout, dark tree trunk that might have been walnut offered a crash course in the layout of Fairway Ranch.

Balmoral Golf Course to the north, White Oak to the south, Reflection Lake straight ahead. The Pinnacle Recreation Center and Spa to the north, Walnut Grove Fitness Center to the south. In the center, Piccadilly Arcade.

Other arrows pointed to what I assumed were six different housing subdivisions: Chatham, Cotswold, Sussex, Essex, Yorkshire, Jersey.

The mountains were two or three miles away but seemed to be closer. Sparkling color and knife-edge detail said the air was pure.

Beyond the tree post was a small single cube of a building. The rounded edges and blatant texture of pseudo-adobe. More Spanish tile.

Letting the Seville idle, I looked around. Acres of grass and scores more California peppers, a few clumps of peach trees with curling leaves. A handful of larger trunks with bark that matched the color and texture of the signpost and had to be walnuts. No fruit or blossoms. Dead branches and truncated tops.

Imagining the stink of fertilizer, the grind of machinery, pickers moving through sun-dappled rows, I thought of Henry Ardullo's resolve never to sell out.

In the distance I could see assortments of houses-sugar cubes with red tile roofs. Not a hint of half-timber, brick, slate, or wood shingle.

Sussex, Essex ... English monikers, Southwest architecture. In California, escape from logic was sometimes construed as freedom.

I heard an engine start. A pale blue Ford sedan with black-wall tires was parked next to the cube. Now it drove forward very slowly and stopped right next to me. Understated shield logo on the driver's door. Crossed rifles above "BP, Inc. A Security Corporation." No cherry on top, no conspicuous display of firearms.

At the wheel was a mustachioed young man wearing a pale blue uniform and mirrored shades.

"Morning, sir." Tight smile.