Top 10 Los Angeles Landmarks I Saw in 2023
December 29, 2023
In 2023, I visited 69 LA landmarks on the National Register of Historic Places. Here are my top 10, with links to my full writeups on each of them.
#185: Holmes-Shannon House (Victoria Park)
December 24, 2023
Embodied in this opulent craftsman home are the history of the Victoria Park neighborhood, the legacy of the eminent architects Train & Williams, and the fascinating backgrounds of financier Nellie Shannon, her husband Michael (the first traffic cop in LA) and their son Michael Francis, who once served as Grand Exalted Ruler of the Elks.
#184: Fireboat Ralph J. Scott (San Pedro)
December 14, 2023
The fireboat Ralph J. Scott served the Port of LA from 1925-2003, making it the longest-serving apparatus in LA Fire Department history.
#183: House at 1360 Lida Street (Pasadena)
December 6, 2023
The well-preserved Victorian house at 1360 Lida Street is one of the few 19th century remnants in Linda Vista, Pasadena's wealthiest neighborhood. It was built in 1888 at a critical juncture for the neighborhood, as it was transforming from sleepy rural farmland to an exclusive bedroom community of entrepreneurs and working professionals.
#182: The Homestead Acre / Minnie Hill Palmer House (Chatsworth)
November 30, 2023
This humble 1911 cottage was once home to the Hill family, some of Chatsworth's earliest settlers. Now called the Homestead Acre, it's one of the few physical connections we still have to the west Valley’s pioneer days.
#181: Malaga Cove Plaza (Palos Verdes)
November 22, 2023
Malaga Cove Plaza was the first commercial center built in the first subdivision of Palos Verdes. Though its buildings span decades and architects, it all hangs together thanks to a uniform Mediterranean vibe.
#180: Bowen Court (Pasadena)
November 15, 2023
Bowen Court (1911), designed by Arthur & Alfred Heineman, is the oldest bungalow court in Pasadena still standing in its original location. It's also the quintessence of the style: 23 craftsman cottages, each one with its distinctive quirks, all centered around a wide walkway with nary a car in site.
#179: US Post Office – San Pedro
November 6, 2023
Built in 1936, the San Pedro Post Office merges New Deal-era "starved classical" style with art deco quirks. While the architecture and Fletcher Martin mural are the draw here, the original glass-top writing desks are plenty charming, too. PLUS: a surprise postal museum downstairs!
#178: Hollywood Forever Cemetery (Hollywood)
October 31, 2023
Hollywood Forever cemetery is the final resting place of countless entertainers, and many of LA's all-time most important citizens. But its significance extends way beyond who was buried there.
#177: Point Vicente Lighthouse (Palos Verdes)
October 23, 2023
The old keepers of the 1926 Point Vicente Lighthouse used to tell of a ghostly woman that would move across the walkway garbed in a flowing white dress. Though the "Lady of the Light" hasn't been seen since someone applied a fresh coat of paint in 1955, and no keepers have minded the beacon since the early 1970s, the Point Vicente Lighthouse is still an important navigational aid for ships heading into the Ports of LA and Long Beach.
#176: Wilton Historic District (Hancock Park)
October 16, 2023
Wilton Historic District comprises 63 well-maintained homes, mostly craftsman & colonial revival, built between 1907 and 1925. The neighborhood's unique, due to the weird-ass layout of the streets and unorthodox siting of many of the homes, and how magnificently it's held up over the past century.
#175: Saddlerock Ranch Pictograph Site (Malibu)
October 9, 2023
The pictographs at Saddlerock Ranch are the earliest known indigenous documentation of the arrival of the Europeans in the LA area. They are believed to represent an encounter between the Chumash tribe and Gaspar de Portolá's exploration party in 1769-1770.
#174: Lasky-Demille Barn (Hollywood)
October 5, 2023
The Lasky-DeMille Barn is the earliest surviving structure from the beginnings of the Hollywood movie biz, and the place where the first feature-length Hollywood film (The Squaw Man) was shot. And its significance extends both before and after that. The barn was connected to some of the pioneering citizens of Hollywood, and in its current reuse as the Hollywood Heritage Museum, it serves as a cultural citadel, safeguarding Hollywood's history.
#173: Ralphs Grocery Store (Westwood)
September 28, 2023
The 1929 Ralphs Westwood building is one of the only remaining vestiges of the SoCal grocery chain's early expansion years. It was also one of the very first buildings in Westwood Village, a neighborhood whose growth paralleled UCLA's.
#172: Pan American Bank (East LA)
September 16, 2023
This small community bank opened in 1966 as the first bank in California to offer fully bilingual services in English and Spanish. For 50 years they served the largely Chicano community of East LA, offering home and small business loans to people that other banks wouldn’t give the time of day, and generally helping the local economy thrive. It's gilded by a mosaic mural that inspired the local Chicano art movement of the late '60s/early '70s.