Palisades del Rey (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

for "''Palisades'' of the King") was a 1921 neighborhood land development by Dickinson & Gillespie Co. that later came to be called the

Playa del Rey Playa del Rey (Spanish for "Beach of the King") is a seaside community in the Santa Monica Bay and the Westside region of Los Angeles, California. It has a ZIP code of 90293 and area codes of 310 and 424. As of 2018, the community had a populat ...

district of

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It lay at an elevation of 135 feet (41 m). All of the houses in this area were custom built, many as beach homes owned by Hollywood actors and producers, including

Cecil B. DeMille Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American film director, producer and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cine ...

Charles Bickford Charles Ambrose Bickford (January 1, 1891 – November 9, 1967) was an American actor known for supporting roles. He was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for '' The Song of Bernadette'' (1943), '' The ...

, and others. A southern portion of Playa del Rey became known as Surfridge. It was south of the current remaining area of

and north of El Segundo and immediately west of the perimeter of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The area is bounded on the east by LAX, on the north by Waterview and Napoleon streets, on the south by Imperial Highway, and on the west by Vista del Mar. The beach to the west of the area is

Dockweiler State Beach Dockweiler State Beach is a beach in Los Angeles, California, with of shoreline and a hang gliding practice and training area. Although a unit of the California state park system, it is managed by the Los Angeles County Department of Beaches ...

Development

Surfridge was developed in the 1920s and 1930s as "an isolated playground for the wealthy."Anton, Max. (2013, March 2)
''LAX ghost town a home to memories and rare butterflies''.
The Los Angeles Times. In 1925 the developer held a contest to name the neighborhood and awarded the $1,000 prize to an

Angeleno A person from Los Angeles is called an Angeleno. The demographics of Los Angeles are determined by population surveys such as the American Community Survey and the United States Census. According to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, Los Angeles' ...

who submitted "Surfridge." The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' 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 made of

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

stone In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...

; frame structures were prohibited. Development was slowed by the onset of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, but in the early 1930s the wealthy began to buy lots to build large homes.

Airport

Mines Field, a small airport at that time, opened to the east of Surfridge in 1928. It became a popular location for residents to see air shows. The growing number of commercial flights into Los Angeles following World War II meant a higher number of planes flying low over Surfridge. Many residents learned to co-exist with the noise from propeller planes, but jet engines were difficult to ignore. El Segundo, California aerial

"If you lived in Surfridge prior to the late 1950s, you had to raise your voice a bit when having a conversation. After the jets came, you had to literally stop talking when they took off," said Duke Dukesherer, a business executive who has written about Surfridge's history. In the 1960s and 1970s, the area was condemned and acquired by the

City of Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in a series of

eminent domain Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...

purchases to facilitate airport expansion and to address concerns about noise from jet airplanes. Homeowners were forced to sell their property to the city. Several homeowners sued the city and remained in their houses for several years after the majority of houses were vacated. Eventually all the houses were either moved or demolished.

Nature preserve

The neighborhood is now enclosed by chain-link fences. Old residential streets are still visible through the fencing and from the air. The area is now a protected habitat for the endangered

El Segundo blue butterfly The El Segundo blue (''Euphilotes battoides allyni'') is a rare subspecies of the square-spotted blue butterfly. It is endemic to a small dune ecosystem in Southern California that used to be a community called Palisades del Rey, close to the ...

. In 2019, a number of rare

burrowing owl The burrowing owl (''Athene cunicularia''), also called the shoco, is a small, long-legged owl found throughout open landscapes of North and South America. Burrowing owls can be found in grasslands, rangelands, agricultural areas, deserts, or an ...

s were sighted nesting in the preserve.

California gnatcatcher The California gnatcatcher (''Polioptila californica'') is a small long insectivorous bird which frequents dense coastal sage scrub growth. This species was recently split from the similar black-tailed gnatcatcher of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan d ...

s are also found amidst the restored

sand dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

s and

coastal sage scrub Coastal sage scrub, also known as coastal scrub, CSS, or soft chaparral, is a low scrubland plant community of the California coastal sage and chaparral subecoregion, found in coastal California and northwestern coastal Baja California. It is w ...

despite the noise. The only part of the neighbourhood still accessible to the public is Vista Del Mar Park, a small park with a playground and picnic area on Vista Del Mar Boulevard that is maintained by the City of Los Angeles."LA Parks: Vista Del Mar Park
/ref>

External links

* Video
Surfridge and Palisades Del Rey - What Remains

The remains of a Hollywood playground wiped off the map

Surfridge: A Los Angeles Ghost Town

Surfridge Ghosttown
Photos, videos, information and links.
Paradise Lost: The Rise & Fall of Surfridge (Southbay Magazine article)

References

{{authority control Former populated places in California 1970s disestablishments Protected areas of Los Angeles County, California Populated places established in 1921 Former settlements in Los Angeles County, California Playa del Rey, Los Angeles