Figure 11: Map, "The Great San Fernando
Valley, 1910-1922, Showing towns that
existed at that time"
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Figure 11: Map, "The Great San Fernando Valley, 1910-1922, Showing towns that existed at that time" |
Another real estate venture was developing at the same time as Beverly Hills and Palos Verdes Estates, but was quite unlike them, and more typical of Los Angeles suburban growth. The real estate venture located in the San Fernando Valley was developed between 1900 and 1909 by a syndicate of thirty local businessmen calling themselves the Los Angeles Suburban Homes Company. They acquired 47,500 acres of the southwestern San Fernando Valley and by 1911 were on the way to subdividing land for agricultural uses and developing the three contiguous townsites of Van Nuys, Marian (Reseda), and Owensmouth (Canoga Park). (Fig.11) The three townsites were located on fairly flat terrain traversed by the Los Angeles River. There was apparently no consideration for planning interesting streets or lots or even thematic town centers. Rather, the holdings of the Los Angeles Suburban Homes Company were parceled for small farms and ranches with little concern for the types of buildings erected or the overall image created. There were not many restrictions imposed upon buyers of San Fernando Valley property, not surprising since initial sales of land was for poultry-raising, farming, and orchards. According to Fogelson, Valley developers allowed boarding and rooming houses, apartments, hotels and garages.Ref.16 Commercial and industrial development were prohibited until 1920, but the real suburbanization of the Valley occurred after World War II.
| Figure 12: Headline from Boston Evening Transcript 18 July 1914 |
Strategies for marketing properties in Palos Verdes Estates, Beverly Hills and the San Fernando Valley were being used before World War I and continued actively after it ended. For example, a mid-July, 1914 article appeared in the Boston Evening Transcript announcing plans for Frank A. Vanderlip's Los Palos Verdes Country Club.Ref. 17 (Fig.12) The club house was described as "a picturesque and rambling structure of mission design." This is probably the first of the many images created for "picturesque" Palos Verdes Estates. In the 1920s advertisements frequently referred to the suburb as the "City Beautiful." For example, an advertisement extolling the natural wonders of the peninsula integrating with the architecture reads in part:
 Figure 13: Advertisement for "Palos Verdes the City Beautiful" |
To begin with Nature herself endowed Palos Verdes with some of California's finest ocean views-of silver beaches stretching for miles into the purple distance.
Master builders, indeed are builders of Palos Verdes! Every foot of development, every individual dwelling, every piece of construction has been made to conform to surrounding beauty. Nothing that Nature gave has been lost. Nothing unsightly or undesirable will ever have a place in Palos Verdes. It is in very truth the City Beautiful.Ref.18 (Fig.13) |
This fertile ranch is being transformed into a beautiful parked property after the plans of a famous landscape architect. Picturesque parks are being laid out, sweeping drives and boulevard wind up through it into the canyons and foothills.Ref.19 (Fig.14)
 Figure 14: Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills, 1911 |
 | Figure 15: Advertisement for Owensmouth, "130,000 Acres of Rich Lands" |
On the other hand, the promotion of the San Fernando Valley and other Los Angeles subdivisions was to real estate speculators and middle and lower-class buyers interested in agricultural acreage. Local sales pitches read: "There's Money in Poultry At North Van Nuys Acres," and "130,000 ACRES OF RICH LANDS, TRIBUTARY TO MARKET PLACE, AND SHIPPING TERMINAL OF THE GREAT SAN FERNANDO VALLEY, OWENSMOUTH" (Fig.15)
Palos Verdes Estates was an exclusive suburban community, developed by perhaps the most talented planners of the day and built upon by those who carefully analyzed the Southern California environment and knew the design vocabulary of Mediterranean architecture. The builders of Palos Verdes Estates were aware of how an imagined historic California could be created and its picturesque image marketed and sold to the upper middle class Anglo-Americans for whom the community was planned. Perhaps the developers did not realize that a planned community's perception of their image might change, how the landscape might grow over, and the architectural restrictions eventually seem outdated. Two decades after Palos Verdes Estates was developed, change was already occurring in the architectural, economic, and cultural scene of Los Angeles suburbs. The carefully planned deed restrictions concerning approved architectural types would eventually seem stifling to a later generation of the Palos Verdes Estates community. This is exemplified by an article which appeared in an issue of a 1941 Palos Verdes News, with the headline, "ART JURY UNDER FIRE; INVESTIGATION ORDERED."Ref.20 (Fig.16)
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Figure 16: Headline, "Art Jury Under Fire, Investigation Ordered" |
When Palos Verdes Estates was incorporated as a city in 1939, there were movements to reform or abolish the Art Jury, especially by the civic-minded Homes Association. Criticism of the Art Jury ranged from "too cumbersome" to "scandalous," because of their procedures for approving new buildings, and the substantial fees they were paid. The Homes Association felt that the Art Jury frustrated construction at a crucial time in Southern California's population growth, and consequently the suburb was not getting new revenues from new homeowners. The editor commented on an important point regarding zoning in Palos Verdes Estates which,
is grossly irregular in cost restriction zones. The day of the $30,000 to $50,000 home is past. Rising building costs don't permit erection of a $2900 home either. . .these zones must be changed and stabilized.Ref.21Needless to say, the earlier zoning of districts at Palos Verdes Estates, which restricted the price of houses to the price of lots, prevented people from building in the more inexpensive districts for fear of depreciation, among other things.
By comparison, Beverly Hills, although some of its movie star citizens protested against annexation to Los Angeles in 1923, did not have the thematic community design program like Palos Verdes Estates, nor a unifying image of what the community was to look like. All styles of residential architecture and building materials seem to have been permitted, although they were traditional and often alluded to historical precedents. The curvilinear plan and the handsome landscaping of Beverly Hills' streets and parkways, the ornamental parks with fountains and gardens, and the elegant architect-designed mansions, estates, shops, hotels, and restaurants built there over the years, seemed to provide an image of luxury and taste, however parvenu. This in a way seemed to visually unify Beverly Hills as a unique community.
Regardless of the wealth that made up the Palos Verdes Estates community, it never gained the press coverage or notoriety that Beverly Hills did. Perhaps it was because Palos Verdes Estates meant to attract "old money," and was quite removed geographically and culturally from the film industry types, who to a great extent created Beverly Hills' image when they started moving there in the 1920s.Ref.22
On the other hand, property in the San Fernando Valley attracted working class residents, farmers and ranchers, ordinary American midwesterners and European immigrants, not too far removed from a generation of pioneers, moving westward for a better climate and a way of life. The developers there were not so much interested in creating picturesque images. Perhaps the populace moving into the Valley reflected more realistically mainstream Americans' quest for the "dream," achieved through hard work and a chance to own a piece of land.
