Area Information: Westwood

Westwood Village has long been admired as a prototypical community -- a unique blend of historic Mediterranean-style architecture housing a diverse mix of small businesses, together with theaters, museums, modern office high rises, an affluent neighborhood and a world renowned university.

A combination of factors in the late 1980s, some imagined and others real, led to a severe economic downturn which has been finally arrested by the determined efforts of the Westwood Village Community Alliance to restore the area to prosperity.

The original Village, constructed in 1929, was a haven for attractive shops, intimate restaurants, an outdoor skating rink and the social and academic atmosphere created by the university. The history of Westwood became tightly interwoven with that of UCLA when it opened its new neighboring campus on September 18 that same year.

At the time, there were more than 2,000 residences in the area, which was in the process of being developed by The Janss Company. Edwin and Harold Janss were responsible for moving UCLA from Vermont Avenue in Hollywood, and for creating and promoting the unique residential and commercials sectors surrounding the campus that remain viable and thriving.

Westwood’s first retail business was Campbell’s Book Store, which opened in 1929 directly on Le Conte Avenue across from UCLA’s front gate, setting the precedent for Village merchants who appealed to student trade. The residential neighborhoods were then bounded by Sunset, Sepulveda and Pico Boulevards to the north, west and south, and by the City of Beverly Hills line to the east. The Village offered its original residents a Ralph’s and A&P Markets, smaller produce stores and the pioneering Fox and Bruin movie theaters.

At the center of the Village was the historic domed building housing the Janss Company. The main thoroughfares of Le Conte, Gayley and Hilgard were named by Janss engineer Herbert B. Foster after his professors at UC Berkeley. It was during the first 20 years of its existence that Westwood was considered Westside Los Angeles’ gem. The unique architecture and lights of the Village -- centered around Bullock’s (now Macy’s), Janss Dome and Masonic Lodge (now Warehouse Records), the Holmby Clock Tower and the Westwood (now Geffen) Playhouse-- attracted motorists enroute to the beaches at Santa Monica.

Westwood’s early history dates back to 1769, when explorer Gasper de Portola camped with his group at a site near the present day UCLA campus. Don Maximo Alanis, a soldier in the Spanish Army and an early settler of Los Angeles, became the first property owner in 1820. Alanis raised horses and cattle on 4,438 acres he called Rancho San Jose de Buenos Aires.

In 1884, Alanis’ Rancho was passed along to several owners, including John Wolfskill, who in 1919, sold it to Arthur Letts, founder of Broadway and Bullock’s department stores. Letts willed the ranch land to his daughter who subsequently married into the Janss family.

In the 1950s, the Janss Development Company sold the partially developed property to Arnold Kirkeby, responsible for a major redevelopment to the Village and the acceleration of commercial growth, which continued unabated into the mid 1980s.

Westwood today is a district on its way back, with its merchants, cultural assets, history and UCLA still forming a solid foundation for growth and recovery.