1960s and 1970s
During this time Glorya was focusing on raising a family with four small children. Although with the growing success of Kaufman and Broad their lives were consistently ever changing. They moved from Detroit to Phoenix, Huntington Harbor, Beverly Hills, and finally Brentwood. Moving from city to city with small children was an arduous feat one Glorya struggled at times to manage.
“When we moved to Arizona we had a hours long layover at the airport. I had been pushed, pulled, and thrown around all day with the kids. When we finally got into a hotel room I ripped off my turquoise dress and threw it in the trash. I had never thrown away a dress in my life, but I had had enough. I was exhausted from having the kids climb all over me. I was the only one that did not get any rest that night.”
- Glorya Kaufman
On one particular day while living in Huntington Harbor, Glorya had an unfortunate conversation with her daughter Gayl. She had been told some prejudicial comments by her teacher about what students were considered rich and poor based only on where they lived. Glorya confronted the teacher about this. She later discovered that the teacher had belonged to the John Birch Society, a right ring political group. This group was prominent in Orange County, and one of the main reasons that her family decided to leave and move to Beverly Hills.
They lived on Rexford Drive in Beverly Hills for about 3 years. It was during this time that Don had ventured out into the Amazon jungle and brought back an ocelot as a family pet. They kept it in their home for only a short time. “He was nasty,” recalls Glorya. The wild animal would run around and jump across everything. It had a tendency to hide under beds and jump and scare the children. Glorya had enough and told Don, “It’s the cat or me. I cannot live with this”. They quickly found a new home for the ocelot, and only visited it once after they witnessed the destruction and havoc it had caused the new owners.
“When I walked into the new owner of the cat's home the ocelot was sitting on top of a buffer and it raised its hair and hissed at us violently. We greeted the new owners and I looked over and saw their sofa had all the upholstery ripped open with the stuffing dragging along the floor. We talked for a while and left, never to return.”
Glorya Kaufman
Their next home was a ranch purchased in Brentwood they so lovingly called Amber Hills. There they raised many animals including miniature horses, dogs, peacocks, ducks, geese, a woolly monkey, and one lion named Samson. The little lion cub was growing up rather quickly and was given to Colter’s Ranch where he was trained to be in films and tv shows.
