From birthday suits to a lawsuit.
California nudists are baring all in court after their longtime resort owners decided to go “textile” and ordered them to put on pants.
For more than 70 years, Olive Dell Ranch in the San Jacinto foothills of San Bernardino County was a sanctuary for naturists — a 136-acre retreat where residents could live unclothed in peace.
The ranch, founded in 1952, offered RV and mobile-home living, a clubhouse, a pool, trails and a restaurant — all built on the idea that nudity was natural, healthy and freeing.
But that lifestyle came under siege after new owners bought the property in 2019. Four years later, the resort announced it would go “textile” — nudist lingo for requiring clothing at all times.
To longtime residents, that was more than just a rule change. It was an assault on their identity.
“This at its heart is an anti-discrimination case,” Frances M. Campbell, one of the attorneys representing more than 50 current and former residents now suing the resort, told the Guardian.
The lawsuit, filed in California state court, accuses the property’s owners — Mark Glasier, Brian Cleland and Tina Coffelt — of violating civil rights, harassing tenants, engaging in elder abuse, and conspiring to drive out the nudist community to increase the land’s value.
“They are basically making the place as nice as they can with their own money and labor and hoping this lawsuit changes something,” Campbell told the Guardian.
The nudists allege the owners reneged on promises to preserve Olive Dell’s naturist heritage. Instead, they say, management mocked residents as “nasty people,” jacked up rents, threatened eviction and let the place fall apart.
According to the suit, the pool was left to turn green, the sauna and restaurant were closed, community events were canceled and the water system was neglected, leaving people without drinking water in the hot, fire-prone foothills.
Trash service lapsed, and residents say electricity costs doubled or tripled after private meters were installed. Roads, showers and tennis courts deteriorated.
“All of the new rules, procedures, and actions alleged in this complaint were undertaken by defendants to try to empty the Ranch of residents, many of whom are seniors living on fixed incomes, veterans, and disabled persons,” the complaint states.
In the face of neglect, residents stepped in themselves, restoring the pool and repairing roads. But their patience snapped when Olive Dell officially announced it was going textile in late 2024 — a “substantial cultural shift,” the lawsuit says, that stripped the ranch of its founding purpose.
For naturists, nudity is not a fetish or stunt but a philosophy. They see it as body acceptance and living in harmony with nature. Being forced into clothes, they argue, is like forcing a religious group to abandon its rituals.
The lawsuit accuses the owners of targeting those who resisted. In addition to eviction threats, the complaint says one owner pressured people not to talk to police during early stages of the dispute.
Last year, a resident of the resort was charged with murdering two of his elderly neighbors.
The suit alleges the owners “refused to clean up or secure the site of the double homicide,” leaving rodent infestations and traumatizing reminders of the crime.
In court papers, residents describe the resort as rapidly deteriorating — with crumbling infrastructure, shuttered amenities, and rising costs designed to push them out. They say they’ve been forced to take over basic maintenance themselves while fighting the clothing mandate in court.
“That’s not the way rules work in mobile home parks,” Campbell said.
“There’s a process.”
The complaint also raises claims of financial elder abuse, arguing that many of the longtime tenants are retirees living on fixed incomes who have been unfairly targeted with higher bills, poor services and threats of eviction.
The plaintiffs are seeking damages and an injunction restoring Olive Dell’s status as a nudist park.
The Post has sought comment from Olive Dell’s owners.
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