Palisades Del Rey
This fascinated me when I first discovered it while jumping down an interweb rabbit hole.
While I got a lot of this information from digging on the net.
Part ONE of Two
In the early 1920's in Los Angeles n exclusive beachside housing estate was created for the well off and famous. In the course of just 40 years, it became deserted. This is the story of how Los Angele's growth turned an area consisting of some of the city's most expensive and sought after properties into a ghost town.
Just next to famous Venice Beach approximately 21 kilometres from the City centre and standing between the beach and Los Angelas International Airport (LAX) there once stood the beach front suburban paradise of Palisades Del Rey.
Today it is a grid of empty streets surrounded by link fencing. To trespass means arrest by police or airport security.
Palisades del Rey (aka Surfridge) was a beachfront city developed in the early 1920’s. by the famed Dickinson & Gillespie Co.
At the turn of the century, Palisades Del Rey( known now as Playa Del Rey) is Spanish for King’s Beach.
A beautiful coastline, oil-rich soil and miles of unspoiled dunes made it a destination for real estate developers,oil diggers and tourists.
In 1921, the firm Dickinson & Gillespie purchased a three-mile stretch they would develop into Palisades Del Rey,
Surfridge Estates, Del Rey Hills and Surfridge. All in the district of Los Angeles County, California and under the direction of entrepreneur Fritz Burns.
Even though the estate - at the time - Had a field of oil derricks less than a mile to the North and a
Wastewater treatment plant to the immediate South.
Fritz regularly bragged that he would be a millionaire by age 30. Part-politician, part-P.T. Barnum, all salesman,he actually achieved that goal, thanks to his real estate investments, his pioneering professional football team,
the Los Angeles Buccaneers, and his command of the sales force that subdivided and sold the lots in Playa Del Rey.
The area was beautiful and conveniently located, and the hills…
The rolling hills are the result of ancient, wind-blown, compacted sand dunes which rise up to 125 feet above sea level
originally called and often referred to as The Del Rey Hills or “The Bluffs”.
These dunes run parallel to the coast line, from Playa del Rey, all the way south to Palos Verdes.
It lay at an elevation of 135 feet (41 m).
The perfect vista point and high above the water for exclusive oceanside living.
Real estate developer Fritz Burns, a mastermind behind the project imported palm trees to flank the entrance.
He put up his signs and businesses started booming.
It was an easy sell; the rich and famous flocked to Surfridge for a piece of paradise.
And they began to build cottages, houses and even mansions on the beach.
The seclusion of the developments appealed to actors and directors and all of the
houses in this area were custom built.
Many of the beach homes owned by Hollywood stars, actors and producers.
Hollywood royalty that invested in the area included William de Mille, Cecil B. DeMille,
Charles Bickford and Mel Blanc and others.
In the early days, actress Mae Murray built a custom-built, enormous, ocean front property at
64th Street & Ocean Front Walk in Playa del Rey (a stretch of coastal land near today’s LAX airport).
This is where she held lavish parties that lasted for days.
A southern portion of Playa del Rey became known as Surfridge.
Decades before celebrities were spotted on the bluffs of Malibu, stars of the silver screen took retreat
in the dunes above Dockweiler.
A neighbouring area east of this playground was also attracting the spotlight. Mines Field, a 640-acre parcel of farmland,
had become a venue for people to enjoy air races and shows that were popular in the ‘20s and ‘30s.
A small airfield opened to the east of Surfridge in 1928.
It became a popular location for residents to see air shows. These events drew large crowds.
Along with participants Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart, attendees included Marion Davies,
Will Rogers, Bill Boeing and Donald Douglas. It was an exciting moment in 1928 when the
Los Angeles City Council selected Mines Field as the site of a new airport for the city, and
the farmland was transformed into dirt landing strips.
Surfridge was developed in the 1920s and 1930s as “an isolated playground for the wealthy.”
In 1925 the developer held a contest to name the neighbourhood and awarded the $1,000 prize to an
Angeleno who submitted “Surfridge.”
The Los Angeles Times wrote that Surfridge was chosen “due to its brevity, euphony,
ease of pronunciation … but above all because it tells the story of this new wonder city.”
Salesmen pitched tents on the sand dunes and sold lots for $50 down and 36 monthly payments of $20.
House exteriors could only be stucco, brick or stone; frame structures were prohibited.
Development was slowed by the onset of the Great Depression, but in the early 1930s
the wealthy began to buy lots to build large homes.
Surfridge flourished from the late ‘30s through the late ‘50s. Dickinson & Gillespie suffered as a result of
the Great Depression and sold their interests to the bank.
FRITZ BURNS’ HOUSE, 200 WATERLOO STREET (LATER RENAMED WATERVIEW), PLAYA DEL REY.
Fritz Burns lost his own mansion and lived in a tent on the beach until he rebuilt his fortune.
The growing number of commercial flights into Los Angeles following after World War II meant a
higher number of planes flying low over Surfridge.
Many residents learned to coexist with the noise from propeller planes,
but jet engines were impossible to ignore.
