Rancho Park

Cheviot Hills and Rancho Park are both situated within a short drive of Fox Studios and Sony Studios. Cheviot Hills provides excellent views of much of the Los Angeles Basin, and has often been the site for the filming of motion pictures and television shows, including Laurel and Hardy in the 1920s and 30s, The Ropers television series from the late 1970s, the movie Private School in 1983, and Modern Family in 2009. Cheviot Hills’ gently rolling hills are reminiscent of the Cheviot Hills area of Scotland, which is how the area got its name. Almost all of the area that today is known as Cheviot Hills was within the Spanish land grant of Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes. Initial construction in the residential section west of Motor Avenue dates to the 1920s. From the 1920s to 1953, the streetcar line known as the Santa Monica Air Line of the Pacific Electric Railway ran along the southern edge of Cheviot Hills, and provided passenger service between Cheviot Hills, downtown Los Angeles and downtown Santa Monica. Rancho Park, though a small residential neighborhood in West Los Angeles, is one of the few districts in Los Angeles where fall foliage can be seen. Nestled between Westwood and Cheviot Hills, Rancho Park is mostly filled with single-family homes and tree-lined streets. This enclave of Spanish Colonial bungalows and ranch houses draws young professionals and families and is home to residents working in a variety of professional occupations. The district's boundaries are generally considered to be the San Diego Freeway on the west, Olympic Boulevard on the north, Manning Avenue and Beverly Glen Boulevard on the east, and the Santa Monica Freeway on the south. Rancho Park was developed in the 1920s as a middle-class area, and most of its housing stock consists of Spanish Colonial bungalows and ranch houses. Today, many of the modest sized homes have been rehabbed into larger and more modern architecture.