CONCLUSION:

The success of Palos Verdes Estates can be summed-up with a comparison of Beverly Hills. Both communities were successful projects in their own way and remain today as examples of attractive upper-class suburbs.

Palos Verdes Estates and Beverly Hills shared some common solutions to plotting streets and lots on irregular topography, but differed in attention each played to environmental, aesthetic and social control, and long-term planning goals. The planning of Palos Verdes Estates stemmed from a heritage of an idealistic and conservation-minded landscaping and planning firm, the Olmsted Brothers. They set-up a structure for aesthetic and environmental control through deed restrictions, and maintained by the Art Jury, a sort of aesthetic police force made up of top drawer planners and architects, who saw to it that Mediterranean style residences were built in the designated geographical locations with styles and materials they mandated.

On the other hand, the only characteristic that the San Fernando Valley townsites of Van Nuys, Marian, and Owensmouth, shared with Palos Verdes Estates and Beverly Hills was the speculative nature of the real estate developments. In the Valley planning was straightforward with a basic gridiron imposed upon the mostly flat terrain. There were no concerns for creating a community image, reserving land for public parks and community recreation areas that characterized Palos Verdes Estates and Beverly Hills planning. The lack of concern is evident today in parts of the San Fernando Valley characterized by visual pollution, and consistent lack of concern for the environment or what was built upon it.

Palos Verdes Estates and Beverly Hills both were planned by professional landscape architects, city planners, and architects, but the most extensive and lengthy planning occurred at Palos Verdes Estates. Wilbur D. Cook did the initial layout of Beverly Hills with the consultation of other planners, but his involvement in developing a focused community seems to have stopped there. The future planning of Beverly Hills was left to individual land owners, real estate developers, contractors, civic-minded citizens, and city fathers. Zoning for land-use at Beverly Hills followed Los Angeles' ordinances and, unlike Palos Verdes Estates, there was no deed restriction forbidding minorities from living there. Housing for the lower classes was effectively maintained in a zone separate from the upper classes, and when the movie industry stars and executives began moving to Beverly Hills in the 1920s, it appears that Jews and Gentiles lived alongside each other (a social fear of the period often voiced by Anglo-Americans in developing planned communities).

The investment by Beverly Hills' residents over the years into expensive residences in many revival styles, and the careful maintenance of the parks and landscaped streets by the city insured that the town would remain visually attractive. In effect, Wilbur D. Cook, its planner, provided the framework for Beverly Hills' streets, lots, parks, etc., but it was up to the citizenry to maintain and develop the image of an exclusive community.

Palos Verdes Estates on the other hand, was a larger and more complex real estate venture. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and his firm established Palos Verdes' managerial structure to maintain high community and residential architecture standards. Unlike residences built at Beverly Hills, those at Palos Verdes Estates had to be approved by an Art Jury with design standards that maintained the look of the Mediterranean at the most expensive homesites.

Ironically the Palos Verdes Estates deed restrictions also served as a contract for social control in the community, excluding minorities, specified as those of "African or Asiatic descent or . . . any person not of the white or Caucasian race." It is assumed that Mexicans could not live at Palos Verdes Estates either because they were not racially "white." Such apparent social and economic discrimination was common during the period at exclusive communities developed by deed restrictions. People were categorized or stereotyped according to their race or ethnic origins-for example, Jews and Greeks as merchants, Anglo-Americans as banker or industrialists, Italians as vendors, etc. But with all of the emphasis on the Mediterranean and Latin residential architectural styles, the social restrictions seemed to provide a note of irony to the design development of Palos Verdes Estates. The irony is that the rich culture and Latin heritage of those considered minorities and forbidden to live there (except as live-in servants or day laborers) were appropriated as design standards, and the minorities' skills also enlisted in labor of every type, especially artisan crafts like tile-making, stucco-work, wrought iron crafting, brick-making, etc. These skills were done by Mexican and African-American workers in Southern California or imported from Mexico.

The success of Palos Verdes Estates was based on strict controls which regulated the design standards for residential architecture. Southern California architects and landscape architects, adept at working with Latin-based architectural styles, created attractive residences in settings landscaped with plantings imported from the Mediterranean regions. The Mediterranean image was maintained in the designated geographical districts of Palos Verdes Estates. The carefully laid out streets of the suburban community followed the irregular contours of the terrain, contributing to the vistas of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding hills. The residential architecture had elements of the picturesque, evident in the off-white or subtlety colored stucco walls contrasting with the bright red-orange terra cotta tile roofs; decorative elements included carved wooden doors, exterior windows, galleries, and terra-cotta embellishments.

In spite of the careful attention to planning and the deed restrictions which controlled every item that was built at Palos Verdes Estates, the community eventually became outdated in certain aspects. Not only did the social control of "legal" discrimination against minorities seem excessive, but the control of the aesthetic environment prove objectionable to later residents. This is evident in the already cited 1941 newspaper article about community dissension, where the structure and rulings of the Art Jury were criticized. The planners did not foresee that the theme of Mediterranean villages, although seemingly appropriate to the Southern California environment, might become artificial to future, less traditionally-minded residents. Architectural training too, in classical or revival styles, would fall by the wayside with the advent of the International Style, Modernism, and the influx of Bauhaus-trained architects to the United States before World War II.

The transitory nature of landscaping over the years made it difficult for Palos Verdes Estates to maintain the original scheme of the Olmsted Brothers and the city planners. As noted previously, the carefully planned vistas to and from residences and from streets, parks, etc. became almost obliterated in later years, giving way to dense masses of greenery. The details of the Mediterranean architecture, the spaces surrounding houses, and the scale of plantings became lost. The endless variety of plants, trees, and shrubs, listed in the early reports by the nursery staff of Palos Verdes Estates would also change as new residents replaced older or dead growth with newer and different species.

On the other hand, less aesthetic and design control were imposed on residential architecture and other structures in Beverly Hills. Its careful early town layout and picturesque location attracted the upper and middle classes who could afford to buy land, hire architects, and fund community development projects such as landscaping of parks and public streets. In a way, the design of Beverly Hills was just as successful as that of Palos Verdes Estates, although its image developed in a less self-conscious manner than at Palos Verdes Estates. This latter community was conceived by the Olmsted Brothers as a sort of a Mediterranean-theme City Beautiful suburb, apparently not an uncommon phenomenon for planned suburban communities in the United States at that time or even today. In spite of the growth and changes in taste and city planning, the unity of street and lot design, and the picturesque residential architectural design is still apparent at both Palos Verdes Estates and Beverly Hills--both remain well-maintained communities with high-income residents. The approaches and solutions to suburban community planning and the conditions and factors insuring its long-term success are still an issue with today's planners and architects.

However, in the long-run the advantages of a planned suburban community, regardless of the depth or intensity of planning, seem to be preferable over no planning at all. One of the issues which might be identified when considering the development of Palos Verdes Estates, is to what extent residents (or potential residents) are willing to relinquish in the area of governance and community and residential design control to developers, planners, or architectural boards. The Olmsted Brothers at Palos Verdes Estates created the mechanism of the Art Jury to approve design, and used the legalities of the Protective Deed Restrictions to maintain the community's social and economic standards in order to prevent deterioration. But others might view this control as excessive, considering how dear to Americans are property rights and individual house ownership, especially freedom to select housing styles and types.

Clearly the advantages of aesthetic control over the planning and design of the community and its residential architecture outweigh the disadvantages. Some of the advantages might be identified as: unity and harmony of design of all parts of the natural and build environment including streets and house lots relating to the topography; conservation of land for parks and recreational areas and preservation of vistas; security of the community from unwanted and destructive development such as re-zoning by vested interests; use of high quality design and building materials; maintenance of the community's image; and assurance of an economic class of residents who can pay taxes for upkeep and support of community standards.

The disadvantages of close control of a planned community includes: lack of socio-economic diversity of its residents because of the high cost of living there; stagnation of residential design over the years as housing styles and building technology and materials change; elimination of progressive architectural and planning concepts not envisioned by the earlier planners; objections by the residents to outdated zoning ordinances; and slower growth of the community because of restrictions such as mandating that cost of houses correspond to lot prices.

Although the original Olmsted Brothers' plan for the entire Palos Verdes peninsula was never realized, the concept of a controlled, exclusive, Mediterranean-style community continues at Palos Verdes Estates, and has been influential on the development of the other three peninsula communities. Regardless of the overgrown landscaping and obscured vistas, the community has survived the years largely intact, with high standards for residential architecture based on the original deed restrictions. Palos Verdes Estates remains as one of the most ambitious and successfully planned suburban developments in the United States.

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