In Llano, in the Middle of the Southern California high Desert, a bewhiskered Jacques Dupuis stands in Front of What WAS HIS Once home. His laid-back second wife, Marcelle, her long, silver hair blowing in the breeze, takes a drag on her Marlboro Red as they walk inside and, in thick French Canadian accents, recount the day in 2007 when the government came calling. "That's the seat I have to offer you," she tells a visitor, motioning to the exposed, dusty wooden floor planks in what was once a cozy cabin where Jacques spent much of his life, raising his daughter with his first wife.On Oct. 17, 2007, Marcelle opened the door to a loud knock. Her heart jumped when she found a man backed by two armed county agents in bulletproof vests. She WAS alone in the cabin, a dot in the VAST Open space of the Antelope Valley , Without a neighbor for More Than Half a Mile. That she feared something HAD Happened to Her daughter, WHO WAS Visiting from Montreal .
The men demanded her driver's license, telling her, "This building is not permitted - everything must go." Normally sassy, Marcelle handed over her ID - even her green card, just in case. Stepping out, she realized that her 1,000-square-foot cabin was surrounded by men with drawn guns. "You have no right to be here," one informed her. Baffled and shaking with fear, she called her daughter - please come right away.
As her ordeal wore on, she heard one agent, looking inside their comfortable cabin, say to another: "This one's a real shame - this is a real nice one."
A "shame" because the authorities eventually would enact some of the most powerful rules imaginable against rural residents: the order to bring the home up to current codes or dismantle the 26-year-old cabin, leaving only bare ground.
"They wouldn't let me grandfather in the water tank," Jacques Dupuis says. "It is so heart-wrenching because there was a way to salvage this, but they wouldn't work with me. It was, 'Tear it down. Period.' "
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