“Superb Environment Without Excessive Cost”: Some Early History of the Hollywoodland Subdivision, March-June 1923

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

This morning, I had the privilege of meeting residents and property owners in the Hollywoodland Tract to discuss the history and take a tour of the community, which celebrated its centennial last year. The community, on the south slope of the Hollywood Hills portion of the Santa Monica Mountains between Hollywood Reservoir and Griffith Park, was established in 1923, the peak year of a massive real estate boom in greater Los Angeles and when the Town of Temple (Temple City) was founded by Walter P. Temple and associates.

The creators of Hollywoodland had a large white-letter sign placed at the top of the property on Mount Lee to promote the subdivision and, while this was only planned to be temporary while sales were held for lots in the tract, the last four letters were removed and the sign, now world-famous, reinterpreted to represent the film and television industry. For many residents in the neighborhood, a push in the last quarter century by the City of Los Angeles to emphasize the sign for visitation by tourists and locals has created a significant set of issues related to everything from parking to public safety to property damage.

Beyond the developed portion of Hollywoodland, which includes 569 residences from under 1,000 to nearly 8,000 square feet and with a median listing price approaching $3 million, there are almost 450 acres surrounding the neighborhood known as the Hollywood Gifted Park deeded in 1944 to the City of Los Angeles for inclusion to Griffith Park, which adjoins the tract to the east. Much of the history of the community and of Hollywood generally has been written by Greg Williams, whose family was involved in the neighborhood from the outset, while Christine Mills O’Brien provides much information of the donated land on her website.

The Homestead’s collection has a baker’s dozen photographs of Hollywoodland, some examples are highlighted here, from the archives of Sidney H. Woodruff, a developer who worked with Tracy E. Shoults on the New Windsor Square subdivision in 1920 and subsequently created the Orange County coastal community of Dana Point (a future post will highlight photos of that project). In addition to the pair, the other major figures at Hollywoodland were Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler, a major regional landowner, and streetcar and real estate developers Moses H. Sherman and Eli P. Clark.

The land on which Hollywoodland was developed was on the former Rancho Providencia and purchased by Sherman and Clark, who also owned a large section of the San Fernando Valley as the Los Angeles Aqueduct project was being carried out—this water filled the Hollywood Reservoir and provided supply for Hollywoodland— in the first years of the 20th century as the two men were building the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad through the area.

The 31 March 1923 edition of the Hollywood Citizen, which announced that the quintet syndicate purchased 500 acres, considered “the choicest of all the acreage owned by Mr. Clark and General Sherman, who were lauded because “it was confidence such as theirs that gave Southern California railroads, and vision that foresaw the future beauty of what it is today named Hollywoodland.”

The account noted that “Hollywoodland is opened to the public today—not as a finished ideal, but in its infant stage, with the energies and promises of the same men who developed and gave to the city the wonderful New Windsor Square” and Woodruff was quoted as proclaiming that,

We believe Hollywoodland will become one of the most distinctive home communities in the country. Every provision has been made to form an ideal home community. Broad, winding paved boulevards, adorned with ornamental lighting systems are in the course of construction and gas, electricity and water will be installed as fast as men and machinery can do so. We want a strictly homebuilders’ community and speculation [a plague in projects like Temple City] will be discouraged, while everything possible will be done to insure the homeowner’s future.

The article ended with the comment that the five developers created a project which “promises to give Los Angeles, a most beautiful, most artistic and most ideal homesite.”

In its April Fool’s Day edition, Chandler’s Times called the endeavor “an important link in the chain of development which is converting the Hollywood foothill area, for years comparatively undeveloped despite the great realty activity in Los Angeles, into a great residential district.” Four miles of roads were graded and paving was to commence soon and “subdivision plans for the first unit of 107 acres,” or about 20% of the ranch, “have been completed, and this portion of the property was formally opened yesterday by the Shoults company.”

The piece noted that the tract was to become “one of the most attractive residential sections of the city and, along with the streets and lighting mentioned above, it was added that “although some of the lots will be at a high elevation, the engineering problem has been so handled” that thoroughfares would be established on easy grades, with the Engineering Service Company working with the Western Construction Company, the latter involved with Shoults’ previous projects at Windsor Square, New Windsor Square and Marlborough Square.

The 7 April issue of the Los Angeles Express reported that,

One of the most successful openings which ever attended the development of a new subdivision in Southern California was recorded when Hollywoodland, on the Hollywood side of the hills, was offered recently for public inspection.

According to Tracy E. Shoults of the Tracy E. Shoults Company, sales of more than a quarter of million dollars were recorded immediately following the opening. Purchasers of homesites indicated that at least 45 homes would be started on the tract within the next 60 days.

It was observed that the project was likely to repeat the success of New Windsor Square and “rapid progress, under Mr. Woodruff’s direction, is being made on the improvements which distinguish” the community, while an early identified purchaser of land was Joe Frisco, a vaudeville star noted for his “jazz dancing,” deemed the “Jewish Charleston,” and the use of his stuttering as a comedic device. It was stated that Frisco was so taken with the property and views that he bought a lot right away and decided to build a residence.

Naturally, the first structure built on the site was a sales office, which still stands and houses one of two Hollywoodland Realty Company offices (the other is in the nearby Larchmont Village). Soon, the highly distinctive stone gates on either side of Beachwood Drive were erected and these were declared Number 20 of the City’s Historic Cultural Landmark designation program. A small commercial area near the sales office also arose with Greg Williams’ family being the longtime owners of the buildings housing the Beachwood Market, Beachwood Café and other businesses.

The Citizen of the 14th recorded that, with two weeks in, land sales in the tract topped $400,000, with streets taking shape and the news from Woodruff that “water, gas and electricity will be available by the time the fifty or more contemplated homes are ready for occupancy.” The report continued,

That Hollywoodland will be one of the most distinctive home communities is indicated by the care which its sponsors [?] are using in passing on all plans for residences within its confines. While the Building restrictions have been placed at a comparatively low figure, the plans for each structure must receive the approval of an architectural committee before construction will be permitted.

A richly ornamented advertisement in the Express of the same day showed a few representative prototypes of houses on the tract with towering trees (deodars, perhaps) on the sculpted hillsides and included the motto “Superb Environment Without Excessive Cost.” Text indicated that day and night “goes the construction bringing Hollywoodland to the point of being the most desirable residential section of Los Angeles” with selling exceeding the “well-known success” of New Windsor Square.

Moreover, it was asserted that “the future of Los Angeles is in the hills” and the subdivision “will soon be a tract of beautiful homes with magnificent views.” In addition to the aforementioned improvements, the ad noted that titles and deeds were guaranteed and distributed by the powerful Title Insurance and Trust Company and added that “prices are fairer and lower than for equally desirable property elsewhere near Los Angeles.” Terms were considered “lenient” while those building restrictions were set as low as $6,000 and this was promoted as being important as “each purchaser is protected as to beauty” with architectural styles approved as noted above.

By the 22nd, three weeks after the opening, the Times briefly observed that sales topped a half million dollars and that “plans for seventy-five homes, to be constructed within the next sixty days, are being drawn.” Less than a week later, the Citizen published a rendering showing how “PRICELESS HOLLYWOOD FOOTHILLS OPEN NEW ERA” with the paper reporting from Shoults officials (likely Woodruff) that “two hundred additional homesites, which were being held in reserve to be offered the public at a later date, have been placed on sale.”

The article went on to note that “the immediate popularity of the new tract with the buying public is taken as indication that the statement that ‘the destiny of Los Angeles is in the Hollywood hills,’ is a true prediction. While it reiterated the $500,000 sales mark being reached, the paper differed from Chandler’s sheet it reporting that there were more than a hundred dwellings expected to be erected in two months’ time. A week later, the Times repeated the claim about the 100 houses being in development, but reported that sales topped $700,000.

A 10 June ad in the paper provided a range of facts about Hollywoodland, boasting that, within ten weeks of opening, a quarter million dollars was expended for permanent improvements; 300,000 cubic yards of dirt excavated and moved; 200 laborers “continually employed;” 120 buyers intending to build houses; seven miles of roads cut into the hills using steam shovels; utility installation moving along; and $825,000 of lots, priced from $2,000 and up, sold.

The edition of the 19th reported that “eight thousand pounds of dynamite set off yesterday by an electrically fired fuse, shattered a granite hillside” and was considered “the first of a series of ‘shots’ which will blast a rift through the hills” and then graded as part of the system of roads. The event was such that “newsreel and press cameramen photographed the spectacle at a safe distance as the hill literally melted under the force of the tremendous explosion.”

Four days later, the Express noted that the first house in Hollywoodland “in a beautiful little dell near the entra[n]ce to the great estate, in a setting of magnificent oaks and colorful verdure,” was being built by Albert B. Crist (1887-1987), a designer, builder and contractor who subsequently worked in Pomona and Palm Springs, where he spent his later years. The residence referred to in the article at 2716 Woodhaven Drive, just around the corner from the realty office, is now for sale at $3,249,000.

The second residence was that owned by Frederic W. Conant (1892-1974), a Santa Barbara native, World War I veteran with experience in the fighting against “Pancho” Villa in México and building engineer whose house on Beachwood is still standing, as well. Conant, who competed in yachting in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, went on to be the senior vice-president and vice-chair of the Douglas Aircraft Company and credited by founder Donald W. Douglas for oversight of some 300,000 craft built by the firm at its massive Long Beach plant during the Second World War. Conant lived in the home, shown as the featured image, until his death, a half-century after the handsome dwelling was constructed.

Having shared a few examples of the Hollywoodland photos from the Homestead’s holdings here, we’ll look to offer more in future posts, so be on the lookout for those.