Olive Dell fight in the limelight
National reports spotlight tenants’ lawsuit as a naturist community fights for survival
TLDR: Olive Dell Ranch, once known as one of Southern California’s friendliest nudist clubs, has become the center of a bitter fight over identity, ownership, and survival. A year after an alleged double murder rattled the community, residents say they’re battling harassment, power cuts, and the loss of their nudist way of life—while management insists tenants are freeloaders bent on sabotage. Behind the headlines and soundbites lies a tangled story of lawsuits, broken trust, and a community determined not to disappear.
One year after the devastating killings that first thrust Olive Dell Ranch into the headlines, the beleaguered nudist community is again under the glare of the media. Back-to-back reports from KTLA and KCAL put residents on camera describing clothing rules, shuttered amenities, and the struggle to keep their homes. LA Times, The Guardian, and a slew of other outlets soon followed, framing the dispute as a civil rights battle and amplifying the story to an international audience.
The lawsuit seeks at least $5 million in damages, with plaintiffs’ attorney Frances Campbell describing it as a fight against discrimination that disproportionately harms elderly, disabled, and veteran residents. At the heart of the dispute is Olive Dell’s identity itself: long known as a nudist club, the ranch was abruptly declared a clothing-mandatory RV park by management in November 2024, a change that residents say undercut the very community they moved there to join. Residents accuse management of harassment, unsafe conditions, and an effort to drive them out; owners counter with allegations that tenants have failed to pay rent or utilities, vandalized facilities, and harassed staff. The conflict has grown into a sprawling battle that has left the 73-year-old naturist club fractured, litigious, and struggling to survive.
The TV segments lasted only a few minutes, but behind those soundbites lies a far deeper story. Olive Dell, founded in 1952 and once celebrated as one of Southern California’s friendliest nudist clubs, has in recent years been reshaped by litigation, tragedy, and grief. What was a thriving naturist community in the Colton foothills is now locked in open conflict with its own management. That conflict has intensified sharply over the past three years—a trajectory Planet Nude was covering closely long before the Menard killings cast a global spotlight on the club.
What follows brings much of that investigative context to light, in a level of detail that short TV segments and high-level news pieces have not fully explored.
Back in the media
Olive Dell residents are no strangers to media attention. Last year’s murder investigation drew international coverage, and reports have continued as the case of accused killer Michael Royce Sparks lurches slowly through discovery. Earlier this year, headlines sensationalized testimony suggesting the crime stemmed from a petty dispute involving a hot dog. What sets the latest coverage apart is its focus not on the murder case, but on the community still living at the club.
On KTLA, resident Nancy Roeder said she and her neighbors were “just trying to survive.” Another resident, Samantha “Sunshine” Lorick, described illegal rent hikes, and recounted being fired as an employee for refusing to inflate bills. Nelson called the situation “constructive eviction,” accusing management of waiting residents out.
One night later on KCAL, Roeder’s words were even starker: “I’ve never seen such cruelty,” she said, describing the heat of 106 degrees after electric meters were removed and power cut. Another resident, Erik Perosky, told the station he and others had resorted to hauling propane just to have hot showers. KCAL emphasized how the new conditions compound the trauma of last year’s killings, with disabled veterans and seniors in particular struggling to cope.
Residents push back
The news reports have alluded repeatedly to a lawsuit without naming the specifics. The current center of the resident-management confrontation is Viosca et al. v. Olive Dell Management, LLC, a sweeping case filed in May that unites at least fifty-six residents and workers against Olive Dell’s management. Plaintiffs include Nancy Roeder, Penny Palmer, Samantha “Sunshine” Lorick, and Chevy Nelson—many of the same voices seen on television—as well as veterans, retirees, and families who have called Olive Dell home for years.
The lawsuit names Olive Dell Management, Mark Glasier, Tina Coffelt, Brian Cleland, and several related entities, along with property manager “Minnie” Darlene McCleary. The complaint alleges that management engaged in discriminatory practices, tampered with utilities and meters, and took or destroyed property without authorization. Residents also allege that longtime workers were unlawfully terminated, and that vulnerable tenants—many elderly or disabled—were financially exploited. The case docket also cites instances of discriminatory hostility, including an allegation that one of the owners referred to nudists as “nasty people.”
The case details echo what tenants have told reporters: cutting off hot water and ripping out the sauna, locking the pool gates, boarding up the laundry, seizing electric meters, and hiking bills to unsustainable levels. Court filings and photos submitted with the lawsuit show the pool turned green, tennis courts overrun with weeds and debris, and trash piling up in common areas. Plaintiffs say potable water service was eventually cut, raising health risks, and that electric meters were replaced with units that doubled or tripled monthly bills.
Tina Coffelt, who identifies herself as an owner and manager, rejects those claims, telling Planet Nude by email that “most of the residents have not paid their rent or utilities for more than six months” and that meter removals and shut-offs were no different than a utility cutting service for nonpayment. She accused tenants of vandalizing the laundry and pool, breaking into the office, and even assaulting the property manager. “There is no elder abuse,” Coffelt wrote. “Asking people to pay their bills is not abuse.”
Residents say they aren’t refusing to pay rent, but are left without clear direction on who to pay, since Olive Dell Management’s corporate standing has lapsed and ownership remains contested.
In the meantime, they say they’ve maintained roads, cleared brush, and even cleaned the pool themselves in an effort to keep the ranch livable.
Planet Nude invited Coffelt, Glasier, and McCleary to respond in detail; only Coffelt replied by email.
Multiple fights at once
If the residents’ lawsuit is the defensive line, the push to buy Olive Dell back might be the offensive strategy. Some members have pledged money toward a plan to take control of the ranch themselves, and they’ve found an ally in neighbor Daniel Kerr, a onetime Olive Dell resident who has owned and lived on an adjoining plot of land for ten years. Kerr’s property access runs directly through Olive Dell, tying his daily life to the fate of the club.
Earlier this year he acquired the 32% interest once held by former co-owner Brian Cleland, making Kerr a partner at odds with co-owners Mark Glasier and Tina Coffelt. Unlike Glasier and Coffelt—who do not live on site and are so rarely seen at the ranch that many residents say they wouldn’t recognize them—Kerr lives next door, and is a longtime member of the community. As a result, he has become the only owner visible in day-to-day life at the club.
Brian Cleland told Planet Nude he originally invested in buying Olive Dell alongside Mark Glasier to support Olive Dell as a nudist club, but fell out with management after Coffelt took charge. Feeling sidelined, Cleland explained, “I went and hired Danny to be my manager to basically protect my interest.” He ultimately sold his interest to Kerr rather than continue, saying he no longer wanted “the headache to fight with Tina.”
Kerr and Cleland question Coffelt’s ownership; Secretary of State filings for 26520 Keissel Rd., LLC list Glasier and Kerr as managing members, but not Coffelt. Coffelt and Glasier dispute Kerr’s authority and have sued, alleging he took records and misrepresented his role.
This clash over ownership boiled over in March 2025, when Glasier, Coffelt, and their companies filed suit against Kerr, Cleland, Chevy Nelson, and others. The complaint alleges that they committed fraud, trespass, theft of records, unfair business practices, and more. It also adds claims of financial elder abuse—this time on the basis that Glasier and Coffelt themselves qualify as elders under California law.
Chevy Nelson, who was surprised to find herself named in the case, told Planet Nude: “It’s funny—everyone thought I was working for Tina when she decided to sue me.”
Kerr, in turn, claims to have every right to the business’s records as a co-owner, and called the accusations against him exaggerated, telling Planet Nude he worked with attorneys to ensure the transfer of Cleland’s interest was “done by the book.” He also pushed back against portrayals of tenants as freeloaders: “These people are not trying to live here rent-free. They’re good people who just want to know who to pay and to have a community that works.”
Legal entanglements
These lawsuits are only two among many between the current owners and past owners, residents, or past employees. The Kilborns—Bobby and Becki, who managed Olive Dell for decades before being forced out in 2023—have their own breach-of-contract case pending against Glasier, Coffelt, Cleland, and Olive Dell Management. That case is stayed for arbitration, but it shows how deep the conflict now runs: tenants, former managers, owners, and neighbors are all entangled in court. That, of course, does not even include the high-profile double murder case pending against longtime Olive Dell resident Michael Royce Sparks, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of killing his neighbors, Daniel and Stephanie Menard.
The bevy of current lawsuits featuring Olive Dell manager Tina Coffelt adds to a notable record of legal disputes over the years. Since assuming a leadership role at Olive Dell in 2023, Coffelt has been named in multiple disputes with residents and former employees. But even before her tenure at the nudist club, public records show her name in more than a dozen California court cases over the past decade, including breach-of-contract and business disputes, judicial reviews, small-claims judgments, and petitions alleging elder abuse.
For the fifty-six residents named as plaintiffs on the current lawsuit, this pattern reinforces their view of Olive Dell’s ownership as hostile to community interests and willing to weaponize the courts against those who resist.
Both the tenants’ case and the owners’ case remain active, with hearings slated this fall.
What comes next
This legal crossfire comes on the heels of one of the darkest episodes in Olive Dell’s history. In August 2024, longtime residents Daniel and Stephanie Menard were killed, their remains discovered under a neighbor’s home. The crime shocked the naturist world and left Olive Dell grieving. In the year since, the sense of security the Menards embodied has not returned. Instead, residents have endured policy changes that stripped the ranch of its clothing-optional identity and management decisions that they say threaten their housing and health.
Despite management’s November 2024 “policy” formally attempting to make Olive Dell a clothing-mandatory RV park, residents have continued to use the pool and traverse the grounds in the nude, quietly asserting that naturism is inseparable from the community’s identity. Many of them moved in under the pretense that Olive Dell was, and always would be, a nudist community.
For some, the fight is about survival. Roeder and Perosky told reporters of sweltering days without power and scrambling to find basic services. For others, like Nelson, it is about protecting the naturist spirit that drew them to Olive Dell in the first place. Their lawsuit is an effort to be seen and heard after years of what they describe as harassment.
What KTLA and KCAL captured this week was only the surface of a much deeper story: a naturist community caught between grief, litigation, and survival. Meanwhile, the residents have begun to get used to the regular media attention, and life at Olive Dell goes on in uneasy defiance—residents still gathering nude where they can, still organizing behind the scenes, still holding on to the idea that this place can endure as more than just another RV park in the foothills. 🪐
More reading:
Notes
Montoya, Kacey, and Marc Sternfield. California nudist resort residents say they’re being forced to wear clothes — or forced out. KTLA, September 3, 2025. https://ktla.com/news/local-news/california-nudist-resort-residents-say-theyre-being-forced-to-wear-clothes-or-forced-out/
Comstock, Nicole. Colton nudist resort residents suing landlords over property conditions and new rules. KCAL News (CBS Los Angeles), September 3, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/colton-nudist-resort-suing-landlords/
Anguiano, Dani. Nudists revolt by suing new property owners for civil rights violations. The Guardian, September 4, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/04/nudists-california-civil-rights
Viosca et al. v. Olive Dell Management, LLC et al. Case No. CIVSB2515382. Filed May 2025. https://trellis.law/case/civsb2515382/complex-viosca-et-al-v-olive-dell-management-llc-et-al-print
Glasier, Coffelt, Olive Dell Management, LLC, et al. v. Cleland, Kerr, Nelson, et al. Case No. CIVSB2509088. Filed March 28, 2025. https://trellis.law/case/civsb2509088/glasier-et-al-v-kerr-et-al-print
Kilborn et al. v. Olive Dell Management, LLC et al. Case No. CIVSB2417594. Filed May 31, 2024. https://trellis.law/case/civsb2417594/kilborn-et-al-v-olive-dell-management-llc-et-al-print
Marinelli et al. v. Olive Dell Management, LLC et al. Case No. CIVSB2417577. Filed May 31, 2024. https://trellis.law/case/civsb2417577/complex-marinelli-et-al-v-olive-dell-managment-llc-et-al-print
26520 Keissel Rd., LLC, Statement of Information. California Secretary of State, filed March 20, 2025.
One of the lessons here is to insert a deed restriction that states the property will forever remain nudist. Unfortunately, few resort owners will do this. But I would not invest in a resort that would sell out the stakeholders.