AMERICARE ASSISTED LIVING of WESTCHESTER
Senior Assisted Living / Senior Board & Care
Facility Number: 198204999
Americare is proud to present a lovely and spacious home located in historic Westchester. The home was completely remodeled in 2006 and features a flowing design with stimulating interior décor, large common living areas and beautiful bedrooms. Additional features include a covered front porch and a large backyard with an inviting deck and lovely landscaping.
About Westchester
Westchester is a neighborhood in southwestern Los Angeles. It is home to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and Loyola Marymount University (LMU) and is separated from the Pacific Ocean by Playa del Rey on the west. Culver City is located northeast of the steep bluff s and Ballona Creek wetlands; Playa Vista is located directly north of Westchester, at the foot of the bluffs. Inglewood is to the east, and El Segundo is south of Los Angeles International Airport (a.k.a. LAX ). The 405 runs through the northeastern portion of the area. Some of the major employers of the area include the US Postal Service, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Daniel Freeman Hospital and Loyola Marymount University.
Construction is also well underway on the controversial but critically acclaimed Playa Vista high-density mixed-use development, on the site of the former Hughes Aerospace factory and a part of the Del Rey / Ballona wetlands. The project has already attracted large numbers of tenants and buyers for residential and office space, but has been dramatically scaled back in the face of community and environmentalist opposition.
History of Westchester
Like most of what is now southern Los Angeles County, Westchester began the 20th century as an agricultural area, growing a wide variety of crops in the dry farming-friendly climate.
The decade of the 1920’s was one that defined Los Angeles as a city where Hollywood movies and aviation were well established. Air races had already taken place on one of the Bennett ranches at Aviation Blvd. and Imperial Highway in the early 1920’s.
The Bennett brothers, Frank, Andrew and Tom, each owned ranches within the land that is now Los Angeles International Airport. Andrew Bennett, whose ranch home was located near Lincoln and Sepulveda, leased the first 640 acres to the City of Los Angeles in 1928. By 1928 the race was on to select “the site” for the City of Los Angeles, to establish a municipal airport. Eighteen sites were considered by the Los Angeles City Council. The one selected (first known as the “Inglewood Site,” soon to be called Mines Field) was named after the real estate agent who handled the presentation to the City Council.
World attention focused on the city’s new airport in 1928-30, when it played host to the National Air Races and Aeronautical Exposition and a visit by the Graf Zeppelin. Even Charles A. Lindbergh paid a visit to Los Angeles during this period. Early photos show thousands of automobiles parked on the vast fields adjacent to the fast growing, world aviation center.
The voters of Los Angeles had turned down a bond issue to purchase the first 640 acres of the Bennett ranch land. So the City Council passed an ordinance authorizing an agreement to lease the land. On September 26, 1928, the city entered into a 10 year lease with an option to buy and the blueprint for community development was set.
Fritz B. Burns was one of the visionaries that developed Playa del Rey in the early part of this century. Harry Culver provided the 100 acres on the Westchester Bluff area which provided a new home for Loyola University. By 1939 there were 17 houses built near Loyola. These Spanish style homes were the first homes built in Westchester. Mr. Burns had already subdivided Playa del Rey and was promoting this beautiful place by the sea.
Although the stock market crash of 1929 ushered in the great depression, official dedication of Los Angeles Municipal Airport took place on June 7, 1930 along with a renegotiated 50 years’ lease extension. During this decade many parallel world events were taking place that would frame the birth of Westchester as a “model residential community.”
In 1934, J.H. “Dutch” Kindelberger, pioneer aircraft designer and production genius, brought North American’s east coast operation to a 20 acre site at Mines Field on Aviation Blvd. and Imperial highway. The ripe farmland of the Bennett brothers was becoming the manufacturing home for Douglas Aircraft Co., Northrop Corp., and related industries such as Airesearch Manufacturing which was located just north of Century and Sepulveda Blvds.
This unprecedented defense-related manufacturing, in full force in several spots throughout the United States, became the necessary foundation for home builders to experiment with the constructing of communities for “balanced living.” This job related foundation helped shape America’s landscape. Westchester was recently chosen by the National Building Museum as one of three communities on exhibit as communities developed as a result of World War II and the American Dream.
Home builders such as Silas Nowell, Bert Farrar, Frank Ayers, Fred W. Marlow and Fritz B. Burns converged upon Westchester and built 3232 homes by 1943. The 3,000 acre community had been master planned by Security Bank. The bankers and the builders knew how to get the financing and produce housing for the defense workers.
By the early 1940’s, Howard Hughes was building the Spruce Goose and manufacturing war related aircraft and components at the northern boundary of our chamber service area at Jefferson and Sepulveda Blvds. These 1,000 acres has provided hundreds of thousands of jobs. In July of 1941, Los Angeles Municipal Airport became known as Los Angeles Airport.
A combination of the best minds in the world designing and building aircraft and a world war with high demand for aircraft, attracted what became the “people” who made up the fabric of the Westchester community.
The Physical and social planning for Westchester intertwined with an emphasis on neighborhood consciousness and a sense of belonging, became the underpinnings of a thriving community that has endured the unprecedented growth of an airport leading into the 21st century as a world class aviation center.
On May 19, 1950, the City Council designated Los Angeles Airport as Los Angeles International (LAX).
Westchester’s Central Business District, located between Sepulveda Blvd. and 92nd Street, was “master planned” by Security Bank to keep up with the needed services of the “people” who came to live in the homes and work at the jobs. Ella L. Drollinger, the mother of Howard B. Drollinger, was one of the pioneer developers of the commercial real estate in Westchester. Since then, the H.B. Drollinger Co., under the direction of Howard Drollinger, has persevered in meeting the commercial needs of the “people” that live, work and play in our chamber service area.
The 1960s saw the introduction of airliners that could make trans-Pacific flights without refueling, causing a massive increase in air traffic at LAX. While Westchester residents successfully blocked a northward expansion of the airport, the increase in noise from jet takeoffs greatly decreased the desirability of the residential areas adjoining LAX. In response, the city of Los Angeles began a longstanding program of purchasing houses from noise-weary homeowners; as a result, a number of streets just north of the airport have been decommissioned, and the homes along those streets have been demolished. The 18-hole Westchester golf course became a 15-hole course. Also, a local elementary school was closed in 2004, in part due to airport noise. With this experience fresh in mind, local opposition to an expansion of LAX first proposed in the late 1990s rose to fever pitch. As of this writing (autumn 2004), no alterations to LAX have yet taken place, and expansion of the City of Los Angeles-owned airports in the distant cities of Ontario and Palmdale appears more likely.
In the late 1990s, Otis College of Art and Design, with approximately 1000 full-time and 3000 part-time students, moved to Westchester from its previous location near downtown Los Angeles. With LMU and Otis only blocks from one another, Westchester has undergone a subtle shift away from defense/aviation related industries (which have declined significantly since the end of the Cold War ) and has become something of a college town. In addition, the Intercontenental University, with approximately 1800 full time students, is located on Jefferson Blvd. at the northern edge of Westchester. In 2004, the Graduate School of Pepperdine University relocated to the north-east quadrant of Westchester.
By Mary Lou Crockett with excerpts from All Experts