FIND YOUR WESTWOOD HOME

Westwood is a commercial and residential neighborhood in the northern central portion of the Westside region of Los Angeles, California. It is the home of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

The neighborhood was developed after 1919, with a new campus of the University of California opened in 1926. Other attractions include Westwood Village, with its historic motion picture theaters, restaurants and shopping, Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery and the Hammer Museum. Holmby Hills is considered one of the wealthiest residential areas in Los Angeles, and the Geffen Playhouse attracts theater-goers. A Mormon temple is also prominent.

There are several elementary schools and one middle school in the neighborhood.

Westwood was developed on the lands of the historic Wolfskill Ranch, a 3,000-acre (12 km²) parcel that was purchased by Arthur Letts, the successful founder of the Broadway, and Bullock’s department stores, in 1919. Upon Arthur Lett’s death, his son-in-law, Harold Janss, vice president of Janss Investment Company, inherited the land and developed the area and started advertising for new homes in 1922.

The Los Angeles Times reported the news: “Westwood, the subdivision of the Wolfskill Ranch, 3,300 acres (13 km²) of scenic territory between the city and Santa Monica, is to be opened to homeseekers and investors today by the Janss Investment Company. The tract comprises approximately 1000 residential and business lots, situated west of the Los Angeles Country Club on Santa Monica Boulevard and the Rancho Country Club on Pico Boulevard.”

Meanwhile, the Southern Branch of the University of California had been established on Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles, where enrollment expanded so rapidly that by 1925 the institution had outgrown the site. The selection of a new campus in the Westwood hills was announced on March 21, 1925. The owners of the estate, the Janss brothers, agreed to sell the property for approximately $1 million ($11 million in 2016 dollars), less than one-third the land’s value. Municipal bond measures passed by Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Venice provided for that amount. Proposition 10, a state bond measure passed that year, provided $3 million for construction. Thus the predecessor of the University of California, Los Angeles, was established in Westwood and opened in 1929.

History abstract above courtesy of Wikipedia.

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