Like the Italian version, but with more modernist architecture. And ducks.

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 30, 1982

The Venice Canals were the vision of tobacco salesman Abbot Kinney, Venice’s developer and the namesake of its most painfully hip street. When Venice lots went up for sale on July 4, 1905, there were actually 13 canals. Kinney dredged the original seven, and the other six were built by his competition, Moses Sherman & Eli Clark, who had purchased the land just south of Kinney’s. For a few years there were actually 13 canals in Venice! But after Kinney died, Venice was annexed into the city of Los Angeles, and by the end of 1929, all seven of the original canals were filled in with dirt and paved over to make more room for roads and sidewalks and such.

+ Read more about early Venice history in visit #134: Venice of America House

Growing up in LA, it was easy to overlook the canals as one of the city’s unique features. The area was pretty seedy in the ‘80s, and I had little appreciation back then for the urban design and community development challenges that this kind of project had to overcome just to exist, let alone thrive.

Walking along the canals today with my family, it all clicked – it really does feel like an idyllic integration of urban and marshland environments, with people and beach birds, landlubbers and kayakers, tourists and locals all vibing. The canals are like twice as wide as the streets that surround them, which feels respectful!

Owning a house on the canals is the province of millionaires. But there’s a playfulness to a lot of the architecture in this area – and to the hodgepodge of styles represented in such close proximity – that you don’t see in many other affluent areas in the city. Glass-clad modernist cubes abut fairy tale cottages next to Mediterranean-style villas and Craftsman bungalows…there’s so much to look at!

The Venice Canals were modeled after Italy’s waterlogged city, natch, but they end up feeling quintessentially LA. Oh and did I mention there’s a BEACH 5 minutes away!?

Sources & Recommended Reading

+ Bruce, Edna: Venice Canal Historic District’s NRHP nomination form

+ Masters, Nathan: “The Lost Canals of Venice of America” (KCET, April 5, 2013)