Engines, Estates, and Echoes of 1923: The Dawn of Palos Verdes By Contributor and Artist Lynne La Fleur
(Real Estate Rally) - June 17, 1923 Real Estate Rally for the Palos Verdes Project - photo courtesy of the Palos Verdes Library District, Local History Collection
I’m not sure if it was the roar of engines that sunny morning in June 1923 or the sight of 300 Model T Fords “racing” toward the barren peninsula from Torrance, but something new and wonderful was afoot. The Real Estate Rally of prospective investors in the Palos Verdes Project had begun.
It’s hard for me to imagine that so many people owned cars in 1923. My family certainly didn’t, not until my great-uncle Bob began working for Universal Studios in the early 1930s.
That dusty-looking sepia tone photograph in the history room at the main Palos Verdes Library was enough to grab my attention - that and a conversation with Archivist and Local History Librarian Monique Sugimoto about the upcoming Doors Open Peninsula events. DOP, as it was fondly called, was an invitation to the community to join in activities and to visit landmark locations all over the Peninsula on the morning of June 17th last year - a celebration of the anniversary of the beginning of Palos Verdes Project, one hundred years since the Real Estate Rally.
I was in! That was January, plenty of time to design and illustrate a centennial poster - to bring together, all in one document, our many historic places and to pay tribute to four people who shaped our exceptional community. But time has its own way of forestalling progress and this was just the beginning.
(Gift to City of PVE) - Councilman Michael Kemps presenting my Centennial Celebration poster as a gift to the City of Palos Verdes Estates honoring out-going Mayor Jim Roos.
Working hand-in-hand with Monique to resource photographs and fact check historic content, I began the task of illustrating 10 well-documented landmarks, including the always mysterious Gate House, the original east entrance site to Palos Verdes Estates from Torrance. No one had been inside for decades and in fact, it was one of the most highly visited locations that day.
Originally envisioning a much smaller piece, I soon realized that the 1923 map of the original Grand Plan for the project would have to remain full size or it would be completely illegible - 20 inches by 30 inches would define my project’s final size.
(Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr) - Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr at his desk overlooking drawings for the Palos Verdes Project - photo courtesy of the Palos Verdes Library District, Local History Collection
I chose as my cornerstones, 4 extraordinary people whose vision and dedication made Palos Verdes Estates the unique community it became, combining intelligent community planning with open spaces and green corridors to engage healthy family-friendly lifestyles.
• Frank A. Vanderlip, Sr. - visionary, developer, New York financier and investment banker, he and wife Narcissa founded the first Montessori School in the United States. He envisioned a community where creativity and outdoor activities defined the culture.
• Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr - a seminal figure in American city planning, is considered the father of modern landscape architecture, designing Palos Verdes as a garden city!
• Farnham Martin - landscape architect, Director of Parks for the Palos Verdes Project
• Romayne Martin - the driving force in the creation of the Palos Verdes Peninsula School District and the Palos Verdes Library District
Portuguese Bend Riding Club 1958
Let’s take a brief look at Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. - he is such a fascinating and influential figure in modern American landscape architecture. Guiding the Grand Plan for our five Palos Verdes communities (Malaga Cove, Miraleste, Montemalaga, Valmonte, and Lunada Bay), he designed and mapped neighborhoods, street by street, following the natural contours of our terraced land - this is why we have the little parks and green corridors entwined throughout our cities. An excellent example of this can be seen at Thorley Place in Lunada Bay. Rather than bulldoze the hill flat, he created a “green island” surrounded by two one-way roads running north and south. What a creative solution, a visual respite from a flat landscape of asphalt. A prolific urban planner, Olmsted, Jr. was also responsible for the design of Yosemite Valley and in preserving the redwoods, a conservationist ahead of his times.
Wayfarers Chapel, now closed due to recent landslide activity in the area.
Annie’s Flower Stand
I became interested in him in earnest in 2014 when landscape designer Marlene Breene and I attended two symposia, one in Washington DC and one six months later at Stanford University (which he also designed). I was truly stunned at the outpouring of praise lavished on our small and somewhat obscure community. The keynote speaker spoke of Palos Verdes Estates in superlatives, the “Jewel” in Olmsted’s crown.
I came away with the realization that we were the only two attendees from this wonderful place though invitations and notices had been sent to city staff, council members, planning commissioners and parkland committee members. I felt then, as I do now, the importance of engaging our city government, homeowners new to the community, and reminding those of us who have lived here for many years, the value of learning about our rich history. There are many changes effecting Palos Verdes Estates now - we can’t protect our heritage if we don’t know what that is!
I was greatly honored this January when Councilman Michael and his wife Gemma Kemps gifted my Centennial Celebration poster to the City of Palos Verdes Estates in honor of Jim Roos’ mayoral term 2023- 2024.
My family moved here in 1955 - Lunada Bay Elementary wasn’t completed for another year and a half. The Agua Amarga Canyon (at Paseo Lunado) spilled into a shallow gully all the way to the Bay and Via Anacapa at the elementary school site was still covered in garbanzo bean fields and worker shacks. Portuguese Bend was a thriving little community with the stables and the many peacocks that roamed the wild landscape. Landslides hadn’t yet been accelerated by development near upper Crest Road (a fact of that topography well noted by the sheep and cattle ranchers who had worked the area for decades).
If you are interested in learning more about the Peninsula and our rich history, I encourage you to visit the Local History Center at the Peninsula Center Library, located at 701 Silver Spur Road in Rolling Hills Estates, or email Local History Librarian Monique Sugimoto “msugimoto@pvld.org”.
(DOP Opening Ceremonies) - Opening ceremonies for Door Open Peninsula June 17, 2023 on the Malaga Cove School lawn
Lynne LaFleur attended Malaga Cove School, Lunada Bay Elementary, and Chadwick School, received her BFA from Pratt Art Institute in Brooklyn and has lived in New York City, Colorado and Northern California before returning to Palos Verdes in the late 1980s.
For more information, please contact Lynne at “lynnelf1@gmail.com”- The Centennial Celebration poster and all the individual illustrations (both as fine art giclée prints and as educational posters) are available for purchase from her website: www.lynnelafleur.com Facebook: LynneLaFleurArtist Instagram: “lynnelf1”