To give you an idea of how generous Don  Sepulveda’s grant of land was, the rancho next door (on the other side of Sepulveda Blvd.), The Rancho de  San Jose de Buenos Aires (the Ranch of Saint Joseph of the Good Breezes), consisted of only 4,400 acres. 

As Spain gave up on its rights to California, many US settlers began arriving, creating conflict between Mexico and the US.  In 1846, hostilities erupted between the two countries and lasted two years, until California came under US control.  In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo made California a U.S. territory. 

In 1872, the Sepulveda family decided to sell their property for $55,000 (less than $2.00/acre) in gold coin to U.S. Army Colonel Robert S. Baker and his wife Arcadia Bandini Sterns de Baker, who thought it would make an excellent sheep ranch. (The city of Bakersfield was named after Baker. The city of Arcadia is named after his wife.) The Bakers owned the 30,000 acre property for only two years and in 1874 sold a 3/4 interest in the land for $162,000 to the millionaire gold-and-silver miner (of Comstock Lode, Nevada fame) John Paul Jones.  John Paul Jones later went on to become a U.S. Senator.

Mandeville Canyon at that time was known as Casa Viejo Cañon.  An 1881 map using this name  shows the Casa Viejo Creek running down the middle of our canyon.  Records show that the creek carried water year-round, fed by springs in the upper canyon.  The name Mandeville Canyon first appeared on a map in the early 1900s as “Mandiville Canon.”  The origin of the name is unknown.  

In 1904, Baker and Jones formed the Santa Monica Land & Water Company and sold it to Robert C. Gilllis.  At the time, Mandeville Canyon’s lush oaks and sycamores and spring-fed creek were reported to be virtually untouched.  In 1917, Gillis formed a subsidiary company, the Santa Monica Mountain Park Company, to handle the development of the mountain portion of the acreage.   

In 1920, The American Appraisal Company appraised the value of the 260 acres in lower Mandeville (from Mandeville Lane to Chalon Road) at $65,000!  From Sullivan Canyon (the Canyon immediately west of Mandeville Canyon ) to the San Diego Freeway and from a half mile north of Sunset to Mulholland Drive  (5,050 acres) not including lower Mandeville, the valuation was $253,000. 

In the early 1920s, the Los Angeles Athletic Club (L.A.A.C.) decided to build a country club community in the Brentwood area.   Consequently, the Riviera Country Club was born, as were some of the homes surrounding the golf course.   The L.A.A.C. also built three championship polo fields on the site of what is now Paul Revere. Jr. High School.  In the ensuing decades, the Beverly Hills Polo Club, a project of oil magnate Russell Havenstrite, gathered crowds for matches every Sunday during polo season at the L.A.A.C. fields.  Polo players such as C.D. LeBlanc and thoroughbred breeders, including Elizabeth Whitney of Kentucky, bought property in Mandeville and Sullivan Canyon and built houses and stables for their ponies.  In 1926, the Santa Monica Mountain Park Company sold the block closest to Sunset on Mandeville to  the L.A.A.C as an extension of its Riviera property and sold most of Lower Mandeville, from Mandeville Lane to Chalon Road, to Garden Foundation, Inc.  To encourage sales of the newly subdivided land, Garden Foundation designed and built an elaborate botanical garden with plantings from all over the world, many of which are still in evidence.  On the slopes surrounding this garden, they hoped to develop and sell homes.  Movie stars dedicated many of the special plantings with commemorative plaques (some of which are still in existence).  Two ponds were also built, one of which surrounds the Japanese house at 1900 Mandeville Canyon Road.  The second pond is  adjacent to the property at 1888 Mandeville.

The Los Angeles Athletic Club

Development of the botanical garden slowed down during the Great Depression and by 1935 all building ceased.  Bondholders of Garden Foundation, who held the original pre-depression mortgage of $4,000,000 for the entire 3,500 acres in Mandeville Canyon, restructured as the Garden Land Company and became the new stockholders.  The canyon floor was subsequently subdivided as far as Chalon Road and the first homes were started.  Headquarters and sales offices for the Botanic Garden Park was located at 1727 Mandeville Canyon Road.  This address later became the home and gardens of the well known actor Richard Widmark.    

During the first half of the 1900s, Mandeville Canyon had a reputation as beautiful riding and hiking country, with its spreading oaks, majestic sycamores and new botanic gardens.  Many long time Brentwood residents still remember riding horses into the canyons and mountains, often camping overnight near Mulholland Drive, during those years.  Also, it was very close to more regimented riding facilities at the L.A.A.C.  This reputation was further solidified during the 1932 Olympics as several equestrian events were held in the Canyon, as well as at the L.A.A.C polo fields.   

In 1938 a major flood hit the Mandeville Canyon area, ravaging particularly hard the lower Mandeville area.  The damage was so extensive that the Garden Land Company remained inactive for the next sixteen years.  However, beginning in the early 1940s, centered mostly around horses, Mandeville Canyon started to become a canyon neighborhood with rustic homes for the well-to-do, including at various times the families of Donald Douglas Jr. of the Douglas Aircraft Company, Robert McClure, owner of the Santa Monica Evening Outlook, composer Meredith Wilson, and actors Robert Taylor, Eva Marie Saint, Robert Mitchum, Ester Williams and others.  Polo players such as Jack Martin Smith and other neighbors would exercise their horses, riding daily across the canyons to play polo at Will Rogers or just down the canyon to the L.A.A.C.   

In 1954 Garden Land resumed development and began building homes again.  The first large tract included approximately 300 homes built in 1957-1958 in upper Mandeville.  At the end of the 50’s came other developments known as Westridge and Westridge Terrace on the bulldozed western slopes and hill crests of the canyon.  

In 1963 Garden Land relinguished its holdings to Link Builders, Inc. and Seacrest Co.  The late 60s brought Linkletter Schwartz developing several hundred more properties in the upper canyon, still single-family dwellings but on smaller filled lots.  A plan to develop 3,400 more properties in areas stretching up to Mulholland Drive stopped when the cost of utilities and traffic on the canyon were considered and deemed too great.   

MANDEVILLE CANYON FLORA

The Story of Mandeville Canyon’s Flora

The decade of the 1920s was a time of horticultural renaissance in Mandeville Canyon. An ambitious group of naturalists formed the California Botanical Garden, and in 1927 set out to acquire a 3,200-acre site in the Santa Monica Mountains from the Los Angeles Mountain Park Company and businessman and naturalist H.C. Oakley. An 800-acre parcel, dedicated in perpetuity for a garden, embraced the mouth of Mandeville Canyon extending north from Beverly Boulevard (now Sunset Boulevard) to approximately Chalon Road.  A collection of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants--both native and exotic -- was planned for the site. The Metropolitan Trust Company of California agreed to administer the remaining 2,400 acres. Sales of these country estates overlooking “one of the greatest gardens of its kind in the world,” would provide an endowment for the garden.

Topographically and climatically Mandeville Canyon was well suited for use as a botanic garden. Mild and generally frost-free, the climate allowed for the growth of a wide range of temperate, subtropical, and even tropical plants to grow. Some areas were adapted for plants from arid and semi-arid regions. During the garden’s first year, over 1,200 species were introduced. Silent-screen superstar, Mary Pickford, was invited to plant the first tree: a Japanese cryptomeria (Cryptomeria japonica). A silk oak followed along with an olive and a box elder. Seed and plant exchanges had been arranged with domestic and foreign botanic institutions. In another area of the garden, native trees were sent as gifts from governors of states and territories: California Governor C.C. Young sent a coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), Alaska, an Alaskan cedar (Thuja plicata), Alabama, a bald spruce (Picca pungens), Mississippi, a magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora), Utah, a juniper (Juniperus utahensis), and Wisconsin, a white birch (Betula papyrifera).

The nucleus of the California Botanic Garden was Oakmont, Mr. Oakley’s personal lush and exotic garden. It was replete with flowering shrubs, vines, trees (including many types of palms), tropical and subtropical ferns (including tree ferns from Australia), a large collection of bamboo, and subtropical fruits--namely papaya, mango, banana, cherimoya, and sapote. Bananas and pines grew, atypically, fewer than a hundred yards apart, suggesting the range of plants that could succeed in the magical climate of Mandeville Canyon.

In January 1928, one year after the Garden Foundation was established, the California Botanic Garden opened to the public. The timing was unfortunate, as the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression made it impossible for the Garden Foundation to sell the properties on which its endowment fund depended; the botanic garden enterprise collapsed. It was many years later, when a section of land in lower Mandeville was cleared, and booklets and photographs of the California Botanic Garden were discovered in an old shed.  Residents learned of the historic trees that still remained in their gardens from this discovery.

Mandeville Canyon’s Native Plant Communities

Mandeville Canyon rises about 800 feet over the five mile length of the Canyon.  The cool moist stream-side conditions at the bottom give way to drier and more arid ridge tops as one approaches the San Fernando Valley at Mullholland Drive. The variety of plant “communities” is best described when viewed from different locations.

MANDEVILLE CANYON FAUNA

Residents of Mandeville Canyon quickly learn that we share the canyon with an abundance of wildlife.   Immediately adjacent to Mandeville Canyon we are lucky to have a 150,050-acre National Park --  the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.  Within the miles of oak woodland and chaparral that surround Mandeville, roughly 450 vertebrate species of animals live.  There are 50 different species of mammals, 384 of birds, and 36 different types of reptiles and amphibians.   Mountain lions, coyotes, bobcats, fox, deer, striped skunks, rattlesnakes, king snakes, skinks, hawks, falcons, eagles and many more species live in and around Mandeville.  The relatively intact wildlife populations of the mountains and canyons are especially impressive considering their proximity to one of the largest urban areas in the United States