Victoria Park, Los Angeles
Victoria Park is a small neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. There are three
Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments located in Victoria Park.
Geography
Victoria Park is bounded by Pico Boulevard on the north, the rear lot lines of Victoria Avenue on the east, Venice Boulevard on the south and West Boulevard on the west. It is bisected by Victoria Park Drive. It is 2.5 miles south of Hollywood and 3.5 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. Century City is five miles to the west along Pico Boulevard. The West Adams Heritage Association considers Victoria Park to be part of Historic West Adams.Lafayette Square and Wellington Square are just to the south. Windsor Square and Hancock Park are to the north.
History
Origin
A first mention of Victoria Park was on January 20, 1907, in the Los Angeles Sunday Herald:A level, elevated block of around 1000x1000 feet, between Pico and Sixteenth streets, on the West Adams Heights hill, has been bought by a syndicate of a dozen prominent business men who will improve the tract as the highest class of residence property obtainable in the city. High class improvements are planned. Surface and subway car lines are close. David Barry & Co., the selling agents, say lots will range from $1720 to $2000 in value, corners higher.
The platted but undeveloped tract was owned and offered for sale by a syndicate composed of Josias J. Andrews, David Barry, S.R. Barry, J.A. Bowden, E.P. Clark, H.P. Hoffman, E.G. Howard, M.P. Gilbert, Isaac Kennedy, Charles Lloyd, E.N. Mathis, J.W. Willcox, M.H. Sherman, M.O. Tremaine, B.S. Tyler, F.M. Tyler and W.E. Tyler.
Established "as a "desirable residence tract for desirable people", the subdivision was limited to "high-class homes" that would be built for no less than $4,000. It would be "lighted by handsome stone and wrought-iron electroliers, twelve to fourteen feet high, with five large electric lights on each".
The Victoria Park neighborhood design is based on the ideas of Frederick Law Olmsted, who felt that "circular shapes broke up the linear look of most urban areas". The area was intended to be upscale; for example, the streetlights were custom-designed and registered with the city as the "Victoria Park Fixture".
Many of the homes were built between 1910 and 1915 and serve as fine architectural examples of the American Arts and Crafts Movement.
Drainage
Although the builders had promised in 1907 that Victoria Park, being "on a high hill", had "perfect drainage", property owners found two years later that rainwater was flooding down Pico Boulevard from as far west as Vermont Avenue and turning into Victoria Park "with such volume that the street work has been torn up several times". After a complaint by property owner and police commissioner J.J. Andrews to the Board of Public Works, the city's chief public works inspector said he would look into the matter but he felt not much could be done unless the property owners would pave Pico at their own expense.Transportation
Streetcars were promised for both West 16th Street along the south boundary as well as a Pico Boulevard Line to the north. And by 1913, Pacific Electric's 16th Street Line would offer residents a 7-minute ride to downtown Los Angeles. A few years later, in 1920, Los Angeles Railway's "P" Line would finally reach Victoria Park. There was also a subway line promised to and from downtown.Hadacheck v. Sebastian
Victoria Park had a role in a landmark zoning case that reached all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and was decided in 1915 as Hadacheck v. Sebastian. The court effectively ruled that the U.S. Constitution did not prohibit a local zoning ordinance from putting a commercial enterprise out of business.Security
In 1996, a pedestrian walkway between Venice Boulevard and Victoria Park Place was closed for security reasons. The $1,000 cost was borne by Victoria Park residents.Neighborhood Tours
On December 2–3, 2006, the West Adams Heritage Association's twentieth annual Holiday Tour, titled "A Holiday to Remember in Victoria Park", took place in the neighborhood.On June 4, 2016, the West Adams Heritage Association sponsored a tour of 5 homes in Victoria Park. Titled "A Walk in the Park", the ticketed event was open to the public.
Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments
There are three Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in Victoria Park.On September 18, 1998, the Craftsman home at 4318 Victoria Park Place was added to the list of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments. It was built in 1912 and is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #654.
On August 15, 2007, the Holmes-Shannon House at 4311 Victoria Park Drive was added to both the National Register of Historic Places and the list of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments. Built in 1911, it is described as "a residential building designed in the Tudor-Craftsman style by a prominent firm and reflective of the development of Victoria Park". It is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #885.
On August 12, 2014, the Charles C. Hurd Residence, located at 4359 Victoria Park Place, was added to the list of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments. Built in 1909, the Charles C. Hurd Residence is a single-family home built in the Arts and Crafts Tudor Revival style. It is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #1073.
Sugar Shack
The Sugar Shack is an "intentional community" occupying a two-story, three-bathroom house on the edge of Victoria Park that was brought to public attention through a feature story in the Los Angeles Times in April 2007. Reporter Carla Hall wrote:Sugar Shack is an oddity in this neighborhood, a home caught literally and figuratively between Pico – with its fast-food joints and auto parts shops – and Victoria Park, a jewel-like hamlet a block south that is dotted with stately Craftsman houses.The homeowners of Victoria Park, which is diverse but mostly black, have a courtly sense of what a neighborhood should be, and it doesn't include a house that is painted blue and has a front door that looks like a piece of psychedelic art from a '70s head shop. The neighbors regard Sugar Shack... with some suspicion, unsure what the residents are up to and scornful of the house's exterior decor.
At issue was a mural painted around 2005 by one of the Sugar Shack residents, artist Olga Socolovia, on the Pico Boulevard side of the property, just next to a bus stop, without a city permit. Somebody complained, and residents of the house had to go to neighborhood meetings to explain what the community was all about and plead for support for their artwork. Some of the residents turned the meetings into a critique of the communal house itself, which sits in the commercially zoned Pico Boulevard strip of Victoria Park. In the end, the city granted a permit for the mural, which still exists. The Sugar Shack's front door has been repainted to blend with the neighborhood.