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The Portuguese Bend region is the largest area of natural vegetation remaining on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, in Los Angeles County, California. [1] [2] Though once slated for development including the projected route of Crenshaw Boulevard, the area is geologically unstable and is unsuitable for building.
The peninsula was the homeland of the Tongva-Gabrieliño Native Americans. In other areas of the Los Angeles Basin archeological sites date back 8,000 years. Their first contact with Europeans was in 1542 with João Cabrilho (Juan Cabrillo), the explorer who also was the first to write of them. Chowigna and Suangna were two Tongva settlements of many in the peninsula area, which was also a departure point for their rancherias on the Channel Islands.[ citation needed ]
In 1846 Jose Dolores Sepulveda and José Loreto received a Mexican land grant from Alta California Governor Pío Pico for a parcel from the huge original 1784 Spanish land grant Rancho San Pedro of Manuel Dominguez. It was named Rancho de los Palos Verdes, or "ranch of the green sticks", which was used primarily as a cattle ranch.
By 1882 ownership of the land had passed from the Sepulveda through various mortgage holders to Jotham Bixby of Rancho Los Cerritos, who leased the land to Japanese farmers. Early in the 20th century most of Bixby's land was sold to a consortium of New York investors who created The Palos Verdes Project and began marketing land on the peninsula for small horse ranches and residential communities.
The name Portuguese Bend comes from the whaling activities of Portuguese whalemen from the Azores. [3] An Azorean shore whaling captain named José Machado brought shore whaling to this bend in the coastline north of San Pedro Bay after the closure of the San Pedro Bay whaling station on Deadman's Island in or about 1862. He brought with him a crew of Azorean whalemen. In 1864, Captain Clark moved his operations to San Simeon Bay. In 1869, the station was operated by the John Brown Whaling Company (Los Angeles Star, March 13, 1869). [4] In 1874, Captain Frank Anderson (né Anasio) brought a crew from Port Harford in San Luis Obispo County. His operation at Portuguese Bend lasted from 1874 to 1877. During three winters (December–April) he obtained 2,166 barrels of oil from trying out the blubber flensed from gray whales he had caught on their annual migration along the California coast. He abandoned the station thereafter, establishing another further north at Pigeon Point. [5] An 1888 U.S. Fish Commission Report stated that whales had been caught from Portuguese Bend as late as 1884, suggesting another party utilized the area for whaling up until that date. [6] [7] The Old Whaling Station there was designated a California Historic Landmark (No. 381) on Jan. 3, 1944. [8]
Frank A. Vanderlip, Sr. (1864–1937) was known as the "Father of Palos Verdes". He purchased the 16,000 acre Rancho de los Palos Verdes from Jotham Bixby in 1913. In 1916, he built the Vanderlip estates near the Portuguese Bend area of Palos Verdes, California. His daughter-in-law Elin Vanderlip maintained residence at the estate until her death in 2009 and her husband's ashes are spread on the grounds. The Vanderlips championed many of the landmarks in Rancho Palos Verdes, notably Wayfarers Chapel (The church was designed by Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright) in the late 1940s and was built between 1949 and 1951.), Marineland of the Pacific, Portuguese Bend Riding Club (featured in the movie Chinatown), Marymount College, Palos Verdes and Chadwick School.
In 1949 Kelvin Cox Vanderlip, Sr. built the Portuguese Bend Beach Club (a gated beach house community The houses were built on lots leased for 25 years and were the typical 1940s weekend places where people went to have a quiet time at the beach. Back then there was a clubhouse, restaurant, paddle tennis courts, 50-foot swimming pool, a sandy beach, and a 485-foot long pier where boats could tie up.
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During the late Pleistocene, the Palos Verdes hills were an offshore island. The island later became a peninsula, when the region between the island and the mainland filled with alluvial deposits from the mountain ranges near the Los Angeles basin. The Palos Verdes Hills are part of an uplifted block, with a northwest trend, bounded on the northeast by the Palos Verdes fault zone. Most of the movement along this fault is dip-slip, resulting in an uplift of about 1 km of the Palos Verdes Hills relative to the Los Angeles basin.
The Palos Verdes Peninsula consists of several cores and sedimentary rock. [9]
Surficial deposits of the Palos Verdes Hills consists of stratigraphic layers, in order from oldest to youngest:
The ground surface in the central and southern parts of the district is low and hummocky, reflecting the location of numerous late Quaternary landslides. These hills form an elongated topographic dome that rises from sea level to altitudes of more than 430 meters.
The Portuguese Bend landslide occupies an area of roughly two square miles and denotes reoccurring movement on the eastern side of a series of prehistoric landslides. [10] [11] The city of Rancho Palos Verdes sits on four out of five sub-slides of the Ancient Altamira Landslide Complex, [12] including Portuguese Bend Landslide Complex, [13] the Abalone Cove Landslide Complex and the Klondike Canyon Landslide Complex, and Beach Club Landslides. [12] [13] [14] The complex covers approximately 240 acres. [15]
The Palos Verdes Peninsula landslides and ground failures may have roots as long as 250,000 years ago. [16] [17] [18] Certain landslides span 260 acres (1.1 km2) with an average thickness of 135 feet (41 m). Ground failure occurs on an overall smooth surface approximately 100 feet (30 m) below the surface, and over the years has been due to seaward-dipping strata, rock weakness and continual coastal erosion. Prehistoric landslides are believed to be so extensive that they destroyed the formation of higher wave-cut benches.
The Portuguese Bend area has a history of landslides. [19] [20] Beginning in September 1956 and continuing until early 1957, [21] the area experienced a landslide concurrent with the construction of a road (the Crenshaw Boulevard extension, south of Crest Road) along the top of an ancient landslide complex. [11] [22] During this construction, excavated sediment was dumped onto the upper slopes of the complex along with hundreds of thousands of gallons of water which lubricated a layer of bentonite clay formed by the subsurface weathering of volcanic rock called tuff. This layer of bentonite slants down to the Pacific Ocean enabling down-slope movement. A 1958 video newsreel showed the effects of the movement: 140 of the 170 homes in the area were destroyed or displaced. [23] A successful lawsuit was filed by area homeowners in 1961; the plaintiffs won $10 million in compensation against Los Angeles County, the party responsible for the road construction. [24]
Another possible contributing cause of the 1956 sliding was the construction of hundreds of homes on and above the unstable rock and soil in the early 1950s prior to the slide. Home development on the Peninsula has been a factor in coastline ground movement for several decades. [25] [17] Residential sewage treatment facilities (cesspool or septic system), lawns, gardens, and others may contribute to ground shifts in the area. It is expected that the homes that remained after the 1956 landslide and the ones built since then would have above ground water and sewage lines available to reduce property damage. [26]
From 1974 to 1978, an 80 acre landslide [27] occurred in the Abalone Cove area. [17] [10] The lower part of the landslide started to move in February 1974. [27] The "Abalone Cove Slide" was moving so slowly that geologists did not verify that it was an actual slide until 1976, after it had damaged roughly twenty homes. [28]
The upper part of the slide may have started to shift in the spring of 1978. [27] That year, the city restricted building new homes in areas impacted by the landslides, "Landslide Moratorium Map." [17] [10] Since 1980, efforts to control landslide movement have involved removing ground water from the landslide mass. [27]
The Klondike Canyon has been noted for landslides. [12] [14] Renewed movement occurred in 1979, [29] and a Geologic Hazard Abatement Districts was created to study the Klondike Canyon landslides in 1982. [29]
The Portuguese Beach Club landslide is a minor slide within the area's landslide complex. [12] [14] In 2024, residents of Seaview and the Beach Club filed a lawsuit against the City of Rancho Palos Verdes. [20]
Since Spring 2023, there has been noticeable land movement and collateral damage in the Portuguese Bend Beach Club, Portuguese Bend Community Association, and Seaview neighborhoods. [13] [16] Several miles of trails have closed in the Abalone Cove Reserve, Filiorum Reserve, Forrestal Reserve, and Portuguese Bend Reserve areas. [14]
In September 2024, more than 200 homeowners had to evacuate the Portuguese Bend and Seaview areas. [25] The city of Rancho Palos Verdes issued an evacuation warning for residents in response to landslides that are moving at a rate of three-fourths to one foot per week. [16] [19] [25] Gas to the Portuguese Bend neighborhood has been shutoff since August 2024. [25] [12] For safety reason, local utility companies planned to terminate all electricity for impacted residents. [19] [25]
On September 3, 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in the City of Rancho Palos Verdes. [13] [19] [25] The city has extended a construction moratorium for the landslide areas [15] [19] until October 2025. [25]
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The geographical location and geological history of the peninsula make the remaining habitat extremely valuable for ecological and other scientific reasons. The peninsula, which was an island with the Palos Verdes Hills in recent geological time, has close floral and faunal similarities to the California Channel Islands. This feature makes the Portuguese Bend Landslide area a natural research laboratory for the study of island biogeography and evolutionary ecology.
The vegetation found in the area is coastal sage scrub. This plant community supports a surprising number and variety of species. There are at least three races of birds resident on the peninsula that are found nowhere else except the Channel Islands. These are the insular forms of the orange-crowned warbler, Pacific-slope flycatcher, and Allen's hummingbird. The same phenomenon has been documented for plant species. A species of live-forever, Dudleya virens , which is native to the Channel Islands and the Palos Verdes Peninsula, is found near Point Vicente Lighthouse.
The area also serves as habitat to many migrating birds moving through the region in fall and spring. The Peninsula is a headland that juts into the Pacific Ocean several miles further than the surrounding coastline. Migrating terrestrial and shore birds, flying over the open ocean on their north–south migration along the Pacific Flyway, spot this headland and stop to rest and feed. Many of these birds will stay and spend the winter in the area. Thus, the geographic position makes this habitat much more important than might otherwise be expected.
In general, the area has been lightly disturbed, and much natural vegetation remains. Intense disturbances, in the form of heavy off-road vehicle and pedestrian use, have been limited. Grazing also took place at one time.
The fictional Santa Rosita Beach State Park, with its signature crisscrossed palm trees comprising "the Big W" amidst lush surroundings and featured in the 1963 comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, was a landscaped set built in 1962 in the backyard of the Harden Gatehouse on Palos Verdes Dr. S, in Rancho Palos Verdes. As of 2016, all of the "Big W" palms were gone.
The South Bay is a region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, located in the southwest corner of Los Angeles County. The name stems from its geographic location stretching along the southern shore of Santa Monica Bay. The South Bay contains sixteen cities plus portions of the City of Los Angeles and unincorporated portions of the county. The area is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the south and west and generally by the City of Los Angeles on the north and east.
Palos Verdes Estates is a coastal city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, situated on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and neighboring Rancho Palos Verdes and Rolling Hills Estates. The city was master-planned by the noted American landscape architect and planner Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. The city is located along the Southern California coastline of the Pacific Ocean.
Rancho Palos Verdes is a coastal city located in south Los Angeles County, California. Incorporated on September 7, 1973, the city has a population of 42,287 as reported in the 2020 United States Census. Rancho Palos Verdes sits atop the bluffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, neighboring three other cities in the Palos Verdes Hills, namely Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills, and Rolling Hills Estates. It is known for its extensive nature preserves and hiking trails, school district, as well as high property values.
Rolling Hills Estates is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. On the northern side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, facing Torrance, Rolling Hills Estates is mostly residential. Incorporated in 1957, Rolling Hills Estates has many horse paths. The population was 8,067 at the 2010 census, up from 7,676 at the 2000 census. In 2018, the population rose to 8,141, and the 2020 census counted 8,280 residents.
The Palos Verdes Peninsula is a peninsular subregion of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, located within southwestern Los Angeles County, California. It is often called simply "Palos Verdes", and is made up of a group of cities in the Palos Verdes Hills, including Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills, and Rolling Hills Estates, as well as the unincorporated community of Westfield/Academy Hill.
Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District (PVPUSD) is a school district headquartered in Palos Verdes Estates, California with facilities in all four cities of the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
The Palos Verdes Library District (PVLD) is an independent special library district serving the residents of the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Southern California. PVLD is governed by a publicly elected Board of Trustees that consists of five members who voluntarily serve without monetary compensation. PVLD's three libraries - Peninsula Center Library, Malaga Cove Library, and Miraleste Library - serve the cities of Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills Estates, and Rolling Hills, California, as well as the unincorporated communities on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
Rancho de los Palos Verdes was a 31,629-acre (128.00 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Los Angeles County, California given in 1846 by Governor Pío Pico to José Loreto and Juan Capistrano Sepulveda. The name means "ranch of the green trees". The grant encompassed the present-day cities of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, as well as portions of San Pedro,Torrance, Redondo Beach, Compton,Gardena, Lomita, Harbor City, Carson, Dominguez Hills, Wilmington, Los Angeles
Rancho San Pedro was one of the first California land grants and the first to win a patent from the United States. The Spanish Crown granted the 75,000 acres (300 km2) of land to soldier Juan José Domínguez in 1784, with his descendants validating their legal claim with the Mexican government at 48,000 acres (190 km2) in 1828, and later maintaining their legal claim through a United States patent validating 43,119 acres (174.50 km2) in 1858. The original Spanish land grant included what today consists of the Pacific coast cities of Los Angeles harbor, San Pedro, the Palos Verdes peninsula, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Manhattan Beach, and east to the Los Angeles River, including the cities of Lomita, Gardena, Harbor City, Wilmington, Carson, Compton, and western portions of Long Beach and Paramount.
Frank Arthur Vanderlip Sr. was an American banker and journalist. He was president of the National City Bank of New York from 1909 to 1919, and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury from 1897 to 1901. Vanderlip is known for his part in founding the Federal Reserve System and for founding the first Montessori school in the United States, the Scarborough School and the group of communities in Palos Verdes, California.
The Palos Verdes Hills are a low mountain range on the southwestern coast of Los Angeles County, California. They lie on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, a subregion of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Chowigna is a former Tongva-Gabrieleño Native American settlement in Los Angeles County, California.
The Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy (PVPLC) is a non-profit organization that is based on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in southwestern Los Angeles County, California.
Abalone Cove State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) and Point Vicente State Marine Reserve (SMR) are two adjoining marine protected areas that extend offshore in Los Angeles County on California's south coast. The two marine protected areas cover 19.87 sq mi (51.5 km2). The marine protected areas protect natural habitats and marine life by protecting or limiting removal of wildlife from within their boundaries. Point Vicente SMR, prohibits all take of living marine resources. Abalone Cove SMCA, prohibits take of all living marine resources, except recreational take of pelagic finfish, including Pacific bonito and white seabass by spearfishing, market squid by hand-held dip net, commercial take of coastal pelagic species and Pacific bonito by round haul net, and swordfish by harpoon.
Trump National Golf Club, Los Angeles is a public golf club in Rancho Palos Verdes, California with a 7,242-yard (6,622 m) course originally designed by Pete Dye, and redesigned by Donald J. Trump and Tom Fazio. It is owned by The Trump Organization.
Paseo del Mar is a street in the Palos Verdes Peninsula of Los Angeles, California, specifically stretching from Palos Verdes Estates, through Rancho Palos Verdes, to San Pedro that goes along the Pacific Ocean. The street continues to the west as Palos Verdes Drive and ends in the east just past Gaffey Street near The Sunken City.
Narcissa Cox Vanderlip, née Mabel Narcissa Cox (1879-1966) was an American suffragist.
White Point is a minor headland or promontory of the California coast in the United States. White Point / Royal Palms Beach is a county-operated public beach in San Pedro, Los Angeles. White Point Hot Springs are naturally occurring sulphured hot springs along the shoreline at White Point/Royal Palms Beach. A resort centered on the springs existed in the early 20th century. White Point is a popular surfing and underwater-diving spot, and the tide pools remain an attraction. White Point Nature Preserve is adjacent to the beach.
The Palos Verdes Peninsula, a coastal region of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, has a long history of landslides and land movements. The Palos Verdes Peninsula is home to the cities of Palos Verdes Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills and Rolling Hills Estates, and the unincorporated communities of Academy Hills and Westfield.
Palos Verdes Drive is a major street that runs for 27.5 miles (44.3 km), circling the Palos Verdes Hills and Peninsula in the South Bay in Los Angeles County.