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Rancho Palos Verdes is the newest of the four cities on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, southwest of Los Angeles. Local residents voted to incorporate the city in 1973, to assert control over land development. Before then, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors governed the unincorporated area. The supervisors routinely approved developers’ zoning change requests to allow high-density construction and consistently ignored the protests of residents. The city’s name recalls “Rancho de los Palos Verdes,” the 19th century Mexican land grant that included the entire peninsula.
Point Vicente is a cliff with a historic landmark lighthouse. The
English explorer George Vancouver named it in 1793 to acknowledge the
help he had earlier received from Padre Vicente de Santa Maria of
Mission San Buenaventura. Vancouver (or perhaps someone who edited his
journals for publication) spelled it “Point Vincente,” so you’ll
sometimes see it written that way. The Coast Guard has operated the
20-meter-high lighthouse since 1926 (interrupted by World War II); it
became fully automated in 1971. The section of the lamp window facing
inland is painted an opaque white to avoid needless annoyance to
local residents. But opaque paint can’t cover up the blaring
foghorn, a familiar sound whenever the “late night and early morning
fog” blankets the coast (which can happen at any time of year).
Next to the lighthouse is Point Vicente Park, which for seven years
was a monument to bureaucratic ineptitude. On a site that was an
Army gunnery range from the 1950s through the 1970s, the city built a
very nice park and interpretive center that opened in 1984. It was a
great place to walk along the cliffs, enjoy sunsets and picnics, and learn about natural history from friendly docents. That all ended in 1999.
When construction began on an expanded interpretive center, the
contractor discovered that the soil under the park contained lead. The
city immediately closed the park, and put up a menacing assemblage of
barbed wire and ominous “Toxic Hazard” signs. Given the number of
bullets the Army must have fired there over two decades, it’s amazing
that nobody considered the possibility of lead contamination before
building the park. After years of haggling over remediation costs
estimated at $3.2 million, the city prevailed on the Army Corps of
Engineers to remove the lead.
A small section of the park reopened in March 2003, with a trailer
serving as a temporary interpretive center. After many delays, the rest
of the park and the expanded interpretive center finally opened in July
2006. Visit in the afternoon to get a nice view of the cliffs, the
ocean, the lighthouse, and— on a clear day— Catalina and Santa Barbara Islands. You might even
see a sunset that rivals those in Hawaii.
The park’s interpretive center is one of the most popular locations in
the Los Angeles area for whale watching. Between November and April,
Pacific gray whales make their way through the channel between Palos
Verdes and Catalina Island on the last leg of their migration from
feeding in Alaska to breeding in Baja California. The city sponsors “A
Whale of a Day” at the park annually on the first Saturday in March,
with family-oriented activities that entertain and inform.
You can take a very nice walk along the cliffs just north of the
park. A road off Palos Verdes Drive West (see the “Palos Verdes Travel
Notes” link at the bottom of this page) leads to a new development of
astronomically-priced homes right on the cliffs. The city has lined the
cliff edge with a paved walkway that continues into the park, generously
complying with state laws requiring free public access to the coast.
Past Point Vicente, Palos Verdes Drive West turns south and, not
surprisingly, becomes Palos Verdes Drive South. The next stop is the
Wayfarers Chapel. If a travel guidebook mentions Palos Verdes at all,
this is why— and it’s well worth a visit.
The Swedenborgian Church commissioned Lloyd Wright (son of famed
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright) to design the chapel in 1951.
Made of glass and local stone, the building integrates with the
surrounding redwood grove that seems to form the ceiling and walls.
Inspired by the cathedral-like redwood groves in Northern California,
Wright sought to provide a feeling of being simultaneously indoors and
outdoors, connected to nature.
The chapel is a very popular venue for weddings. The bricks of a
walkway around the chapel are inscribed with the names of numerous
couples who were married there. When I took these pictures on a Saturday
afternoon, I was lucky to have arrived during the half-hour between
weddings when the chapel was open to the public.
The chapel and its 1.4 hectares of grounds overlook Abalone Cove. The
cove is a protected reserve for marine life, including abalone, which makes
it attractive for scuba diving. It’s also a good place for sunsets.
Continuing past Abalone Cove takes you through the Portuguese Bend
Landslide Area. Originally named for the 19th century Portuguese whalers
who processed their catch in the cove, this unstable area has been
sliding into the ocean since 1956. For a 1.5 kilometer stretch, the
speed limit slows to 15 mph (24 km/h) to accommodate the bumps,
roller-coaster dips, and constant road construction work. The land
movement makes normal underground sewer pipes impractical, so you can
see the pipes along the road.
Beyond the landslide area, Palos Verdes Drive South soon changes to
25th Street as you enter San Pedro. Although
geographically part of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, culturally San Pedro
is a different world. It’s home to the Port of Los Angeles, the largest
commercial harbor in the country.
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