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| ::: COMMUNITY
OVERVIEW |
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 LAX
& Westchester |
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Among
the early entrepreneurs was Fritz B. Burns, who made his
first million before he was 30 and with the crash of the
stock market, like many others, saw his fortune evaporate.
A visionary man, Burns would go on to purchase, subdivide,
and develop much of what is now Westchester and Playa
del Rey and set a standard for developing quality residential
communities in the booming pre- and post-WWII housing
market.
Through his business and philanthropic work, Burns made
possible the early development of Loyola University. Additionally,
he guided the growth of the City of Los Angeles as it
grew with the advent of the jet age and increased trade
and commerce into a modern city.
Another visionary, Harry Culver, provided 100 acres in
the Westchester Bluff area to what was to become Loyola
Marymount University.
The Los Angeles International Airport was once the ranch
property of the Bennett brothers, Frank, Andrew, and Tom.
It was Andrew who leased the first 640 acres to the City
of Los Angeles in 1928.That year the race was on to chose
a site for the City and to establish a municipal airport.
Voters rejected a bond issue to purchase the Bennett ranch
and instead the City Council approved an ordinance to
lease the land for 10 years. Despite the stock market
crash in 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, the
Los Angeles Municipal Airport was dedicated June 7, 1930
and the city renegotiated a 50-year lease extension. By
1941, it was renamed the Los Angeles Airport and later
in 1951, it became the Los Angeles International (LAX),
signifying its international status.
The early aerospace industry in Westchester can be traced
to J.H. ìDutchî Kindelberger, a pioneer aircraft
designer, who in 1934 relocated the east coast operations
of North American to a 20-acre site located at Aviation
Boulevard and Imperial Highway. The ranch property of
the Bennett brothers would become the manufacturing home
for Douglas Aircraft Co., Northrup Corp., and Airesearch
Manufacturing.
Soon after this, housing development would follow and
set a trend that would change the landscape of America.
Congress approved the Lanham Act in 1940, authorizing
the federal government to purchase land to build 700,000
units of housing in areas where war-related industries
were located to facilitate the countryís readiness
in the face of imminent conflict. It also provided FHA
funding to private homebuilders interested in building
affordable housing for people employed in war-related
industries. This measure would have a great impact on
the development of Westchester as it allowed early homebuilders
such as Burns, Silas Nowell, Bert Farrar, Frank Ayers,
and Fred W. Marlow to build 3,232 homes by 1943.
The housing boom was matched only by the post-WWII years,
when highly skilled GI s, returning home to the U.S.,
were eager to buy homes in areas near their places of
work. This concept of creating communities near manufacturing
centers would quickly catch on throughout the U.S. As
a testament to this fact, Westchester has been selected
by the National Building Museum as an example of a community
that developed in the post-WWII housing boom and as part
of the ethos of the American dream.
As a result of a burgeoning aerospace industry that supplied
the government with aircraft during WWII, the emergence
of a world class aviation center, and the housing boom
that provided homes for the people who worked in these
industries, Westchester attracted entrepreneurs interested
in guiding and balancing this growth.
Ella L. Drollinger was one of these socially-conscious
developers, and her son, Howard Drollinger, under H.B.
Drollinger Co., has continued this family tradition by
meeting the needs of the people who live, work, and play
in Westchester. |
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