CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF PACIFIC PALISADES!

January 14, 2022

Today we celebrate 100 years of my hometown, Pacific Palisades! Crazy to think how much has transpired across the last 100 years.  I’ve been a part of this town for the past 50 years… where my story started on Via De La Paz, then Frontera Dr., Greentree Rd., Las Casas, Amalfi Dr. and Hartzell St. I saw my first movie, The Jungle Book, at the original Bay Theater. I regularly dined at Hacienda Galvan, House of Lee, Mort’s, Barreras and birthday dinners at The Chart House. We shopped at the Hobby Shop, Woodbury’s, Sander’s and the Bay Pharmacy. Sunday night beach picnics with my mom’s bridge group and their kids (sometimes we could even get KFC!). I had my Sweet Sixteen party at the Bel Air Bay Club, and years later I was married there too! In 2001, my husband and I moved back to the Palisades and bought our house on Hartzell St.  Our favorite spots were Mayberry (oh my husband and I miss that restaurant so much!) and Mort’s, The Village Bookstore and the Nest Egg, Baskin Robbins on a hot day. I spent many weekends at Yamato’s nursery picking out flowers for my yard with my mom.

Canyon Elementary fiestas will always be one of my favorite memories.  In fourth grade, I was bussed all the way to Palisades Elementary, where after school I would stop in at the candy shop on Antioch for gummy coke bottles and pester my mom at the Jon Douglas office behind the Village Green. So many fun memories of rollerskating back and forth across Greentree and riding my bike down to Rustic Canyon park.  Knocking on the door of my piano teacher’s house asking if I could swim in her pool (she always said yes!). When I got older, riding my bike into town to rent VHS movies at the rental place on Swarthmore (what was the name of that place? Video 2001??).  The house I grew up in on Greentree still stands… looking oh so cool now as a one-story classic rustic canyon house.

My daughters’ version of growing up in the Palisades isn’t much different, although their story begins and continues on Hartzell St.  From St. Matthew’s to Pali High, both my daughters loved going to school right here in the Palisades.  Our big family holiday is the 4^th of July, starting every 4^th at the race seeing all of our friends and hosting our annual party for the parade. Then we head over to friend’s houses to watch the fireworks. They loved ballet classes with Miss Stephanie at Village Arts, and playing Basketball & Soccer through the YMCA. We have spent countless hours at the park. As a family, we frequent Kay N Dave’s, Café Vida and of course Garden Café. Both my daughters miss Baskin Robbins but we love the Yogurt Shoppe!! My girls and I attended St. Matthew’s Day Camp (scoobiedeedo). Now my oldest daughter is the Music Director at camp and my husband is on the Board.  Is there a chance our grandchildren will attend SMDC too? I love that dream. 

Today’s Palisades is not much different, still full of families enjoying the Canyon School fiesta, seeing movies at the new Bay Theater, and all that our town has to offer.  With the addition of the Caruso Village, we’re a little fancier now, but at the heart of Pacific Palisades, we’re still just a small town between Santa Monica and Malibu that most people across the country haven’t heard of.  I remember a t-shirt they used to sell in town that said, “If you’re rich, you live in Beverly Hills.  If you’re famous, you live in Malibu.  If you’re LUCKY, you live in Pacific Palisades!” – well it still holds true, we’re LUCKY to call Pacific Palisades our home. 

Happy 100 Years – cheers to many more! 🥂