It was the site of the Pisgah Home movement begun by faith healer and social reformer, Finis E. Yoakum, in the early 1900s.

He reported: "I was in the heart of Mexico in a church, speaking through an interpreter to the Mexicans and Indians, when suddenly a distinct rush of some might wind came upon me, and when I opened my mouth it was not English, but a beautiful smooth Castilian language, and for 20 or 30 minutes I held that large audience.

The home originally had room for only eight persons and was founded "to give free care to drunkards and outcasts who wished to reform.

By 1903, Yoakum's Sanatorium had become the "Pisgah Faith Home",[11] named after the mountain peak from which the Bible indicates that Moses first saw the promised land.

[13] Among the tasks given to the residents was the construction of a lavish Tudor-style mansion which became Yoakum's new home at 140 South Avenue 59, and has itself been designated a historic landmark.

In 1952, the Los Angeles Times described the origins of the Pisgah Home movement:"He (Yoakum) walked the back streets, among the down-and-outers, calling on them to give themselves to Christ.

"[12] A more recent newspaper account described the origins of Pisgah Home this way:"The property, first known as Yoakum's Sanatorium, came to look like a tent city, offering a vegetarian diet and ample portions of the Gospel.

Followers erected the tents, bungalows and other buildings next to his Queen Anne-style home, where he and his wife, Mary, continued to live.

Yoakum reportedly had his followers distribute nickels to indigents on skid row, a sum that would permit them to ride the train to the station near Pisgah Home.

[16] In 1913, Halstead "Billy" Stiles, claiming to be a reformed gunslinger who was part of the James-Younger Gang when it attempted the Northfield, Minnesota bank robbery, moved into the Pisgah Home.

Stiles' story was published in the Pisgah publication (with a reported circulation of 100,000),[17] in which he wrote: "My soul was black with many a crime, but he Lord took me and washed me as white as wool.

[19] The Highland Park News-Herald reported in the late 1910s about the parade of people flowing to Pisgah Home:"It may be that some Sunday afternoon has found you in a spirit of criticism or pity for these poor deluded people ... From every direction you see them coming—in wheel-chairs, on crutches, stumbling in blindness, tottering with age, bent with burdens, painted with sin, stamped with greed ..."[17] Complaints from his Highland Park neighbors were reportedly among the reasons for Yoakum's development of the remote Pisgah Grande community in the Santa Susana Mountains.

Much of the publicity and funding for the Pisgah Home movement came from Yoakum's work as a faith healer and an early Pentecostal evangelist, traveling to many locations in California, the Eastern United States and Europe.

His work as a healer received praise in many religious publications, and a secular writer noted that some of the lame and blind who came to Pisgah Home "left wheel chairs, crutches, braces, and canes to be hung in impressive testimony along the walls.

A large audience was present, but the sight alone of the collection boxes did not draw the dollars quite fast enough for the doctor, so the testimony service was stopped long enough for him to tell how necessary it is for one to give away all his money before entering the kingdom of heaven.

[12][13] A newspaper account of Yoakum's 1909 healing event in Pomona, California noted: "A special feature of the meeting was the praying over handkerchiefs to be sent to the sick and laid upon their persons.

Pisgah Ark was built in Arroyo Seco where "wayward girls" and prostitutes were sheltered and taught midwifery under the direction of Sister Nell.

[3] In the late 1910s, a local newspaper described the breadth of services provided by Pisgah Home:"Its door is ever open any hour, day or night, to receive the poor, needy, homeless, the drunkard, fallen, or outcast.

Here a hundred more are gathered, a colony of consumptives fighting their way back to health, a group of epileptics and feeble minded, and an orphanage for 'nameless' and homeless children.

'"[17]By 1914, Pisgah Home had outgrown its facilities, and Yoakum bought a 3,300 ranch in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Simi Valley, California.

Since 1993, the property, known as Christ Faith Mission/Old Pisgah Home, has been directed by Richard A. Kim as its Administrator and chief executive officer.