There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this
afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension. What it means is that
tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast whining
down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, blowing up sandstorms out along
Route 66, drying the hills and the nerves to the flash point. For a few days
now we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night. I have
neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone
I have seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The baby frets.
The maid sulks. I rekindle' a waning argument with the telephone company, then
cut my losses and lie down, given over to whatever it is in the air. To live
with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply
mechanistic view of human behavior. I remember being told, when I first moved
to Los Angeles and was living on an isolated beach, that the Indians would
throw themselves into the sea when the bad wind blew. I could see why. – Joan Didion
So there were interesting houses we could walk to.
Or we would catch a ride to Peter Tork's house on Willow Glen. Peter had been a
dishwasher at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach and now he was a TV star, a
Monkee. My friend Ned Doheny and I would say, "Let's go up to Peter's
house, see what's going on." Sometimes you would walk in and there would
be twelve girls in the pool, naked. And they were beautiful women, people of substance,
not bimbos-not that we would have minded if they were bimbos. One time Jimi
Hendrix was up there jamming with Buddy Miles in the pool house, and Peter's
girlfriend was playing the drums, naked. She was gorgeous, like a Varga girl is
gorgeous, this physically flawless creature. She looked like the drawings of
Indian maidens that they airbrush on motorcycle tanks. I don't think she was as
good a drummer as she was an object of desire, but she was something. Barry
Friedman was on Ridpath too, about a block from Billy James, two blocks from
Paul Rothchild. – Jackson Browne
Located within Los Angeles/San Fernando Valley
Coordinates: 34.117275°N 118.375281°W, City of Los Angeles, County of Los
Angeles, Time Zone: PST (UTC-8), Laurel Canyon was first developed in the early 1900s, and became a part of the city of Los Angeles in
1923 (prior to then, it was an unincorporated part of Los
Angeles County). Much like Topanga Canyon, community life was and is
focused on its central thoroughfare. Some of the main side streets are Mount
Olympus, Kirkwood, Wonderland, Willow Glen, and Lookout Mountain Avenue. The
zip code for the neighborhood is 90046. Laurel Canyon is an
important transit corridor between West Hollywood and the San
Fernando Valley, specifically Studio City. The division between the two
can roughly be defined by the intersection of Laurel Canyon and Mulholland
Drive. Laurel Canyon was inhabited by the local Tongva tribe of
Native Californians before the arrival of the Spanish. A spring-fed stream that
flowed year round provided water. It was that water that attracted Mexican
ranchers who established sheep grazing on the hillsides in the late 18th and
early 19th centuries. After the Mexican government was ejected, the area caught
the attention of Anglo settlers interested in water rights. Around the turn of
the century, the area was subdivided and marketed as mountain vacation
properties.
Between 1912 and 1918 a trackless electric trolley ran up the canyon
from Sunset Boulevard to the base of Lookout Mountain Road where a
road house served visitors. Travel to the newly subdivided lots and cabins
further up the canyon was, at first, made on foot or by mule. As the roads were
improved access was possible by automobile. Around 1920, a local developer
built the Lookout Mountain Inn at the summit of Lookout Mountain and Sunset
Plaza roads, which burned just a few years after opening. Among the famous places in Laurel Canyon are the log cabin house once
owned by silent film star Tom Mix that later became home to
the Zappa clan, and, directly across the street, the home of Harry
Houdini, and, as readers of AM are aware, Laurel Canyon found itself a nexus
of counterculture activity and attitudes in the 1960s. That bohemian
spirit endures today, and residents gather annually for a group photograph at
the country market.
Robert A. Heinlein's short story "—And He Built a Crooked House—" mentions an address on Lookout Mountain Ave. as the residence of the mad architect Quintus Teal. In real life, that address, 8775 Lookout Mountain Avenue, was the residence of Heinlein and his wife. The story has nothing to do with Laurel Canyon.
Robert A. Heinlein's short story "—And He Built a Crooked House—" mentions an address on Lookout Mountain Ave. as the residence of the mad architect Quintus Teal. In real life, that address, 8775 Lookout Mountain Avenue, was the residence of Heinlein and his wife. The story has nothing to do with Laurel Canyon.
Notable residents past and present include Jennifer
Aniston, The Beatles, Clara Bow (1920s, Lookout Mountain) , Tommy Boyce and Bobby
Hart, Louise Brooks (1927), Jackson Browne, Eric Burdon, David Byrne, Lon
Chaney, Jr., George Clooney (present), Alice Cooper, David Crosby, Kat VonD
(present), The Doors, Henry Diltz, Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork, Francis
Farmer, Errol Flynn, The Eagles, Greta Garbo, Katherine Helmond, Boris Karloff,
Anthony Kiedis, k.d. lang, Leadbelly, Timothy Leary, Bela Legosi, Marilyn Manson,
Dean Martin, Steve Martin, Joni (still owns the Lookout Mountain cottage), Toom
Morello, Trent Reznor, Keith Richards, Slash, Justin Timberlake (present),
Orson Welles, Pete Wentz (present), Brian Wilson, Neil Young, Zappa.