Identity is anchored to the Pacific
Island getaway feel comes with the territory. But there’s no ferry required.
Jutting up from the ancient seabed of the Los Angeles basin, bordered on three sides by the heaving kelp beds of the Pacific Ocean, the Palos Verdes Peninsula can feel more like an island getaway than a quiet suburban corner of the Southland megalopolis.
In fact, millenniums ago it was an island, sister to the eight remaining Channel Islands before it was bound to the mainland by falling sea levels and sedimentation. Thousands of years later, its relationship to the ocean still defines it.
That maritime character has always drawn developers to the peninsula, including eminent New York banker Frank Vanderlip, who led a group of investors that purchased 16,000 acres of land there in 1913. He then enlisted the Olmstead Brothers to design an ambitious master-planned community inspired by the seaside towns of southern Italy.
Vanderlip’s grand vision never came to pass, and it would be decades before any large-scale housing developments took place on the land. When development did come, the growth was explosive, and road-building in the area was soon blamed for the longrunning Palos Verdes landslide, which for more than 50 years has sent a 2,700-foot-wide portion of hillside crumbling slowly toward the beaches of Portuguese Bend.
Fed up with what they viewed as over-development, peninsula residents finally incorporated the city of Rancho Palos Verdes in 1973 to gain local control over a huge, horseshoe-shaped swath of land that reaches from the ocean to the peaks of the Palos Verdes Hills.
By bringing most of the remaining unincorporated portions of the peninsula into the new city, Ranchos Palos Verdes became the inheritor of such coastal treasures as Lloyd Wright’s Wayfarer’s Chapel, the Point Vicente Lighthouse, the Portuguese Bend Beach Club and one of the most scenic seaside drives south of Big Sur.
The city also contains some of the priciest and most exclusive real estate in L.A., making Rancho Palos Verdes a popular destination for luxury-home buyers. Neighborhood highlights Island living without the island: Catalina Island is a great place to visit, but unless you’re good with schlepping back and forth on a ferry for your commute, it’s not super practical. RPV gives you that island feel, all within an hour’s drive of, well, everything.
Back to nature: Hiking, exploring
tide pools, pondering the impermanence of everything while you drive on a bowed and buckled road that is sliding into the sea, and whale watching are just a few of the ways you can feel at one with the universe in RPV.
Pamper yourself: Head down to Terranea for a luxury seaside staycation, or to Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles for the luxury seaside putting greens.
Neighborhood lowlights
Accessibility: So if you are looking for a lively neighborhood that’s easy to get to and central to everything, this isn’t it.
Expert insight
Lynn J. Kim, a real estate agent at Keller Williams Palos Verdes, grew up in the area and continues to live there today. She loves its top-tier schools and its remote location. “It’s not in L.A., but it’s very accessible to L.A.,” she said.
Despite its upscale reputation, Rancho Palos Verdes is not as exclusive as some prospective home buyers fear, she said.
“There’s a range of homes in this area,” Kim said, noting that prices start tend to start in the $700,000s and that deals can be had for properties in need of renovation. “The sticker price will show if it’s move-in ready.”
Market snapshot
In July, the median price for single-family homes in the 90275 ZIP Code was $1.222 million based on 42 sales, according to CoreLogic, an 11% increase over the same month the previous year.
Report card
Within the boundaries of RPV are more than a dozen private and public schools.
Among them is Cornerstone at Pedregal Elementary and Silver Spur Elementary, which scored 974 and 966, respectively, out of 1,000 in the 2013 Academic Performance Index. Miraleste Intermediate had a score of 931, and Rudecinda Sepulveda Dodson Middle scored 854. Palos Verdes Peninsula High had a score of 908.