Returning from the Home one may follow Wilshire Boulevard, which passes through one of the most pretentious sections of the city, ending at beautiful Westlake Park; or he may turn into Sunset Boulevard and pass through Hollywood. A short distance from the Home is Beverly Hills, with its immense hotel—a suburban town where many Los Angeles citizens have summer residences. A vast deal of work has been done by the promoters of the town; the well-paved streets are bordered with roses, geraniums, and rows of palm trees, all skillfully arranged by the landscape-gardener. It is a pretty place, though it seemed to us that the sea winds swept it rather fiercely during several of the visits we made. Another unpleasant feature was the groups of oil derricks which dot the surrounding country, though these will doubtless some time disappear with the exhaustion of the fields. The hotel is of a modified mission type, with solid concrete walls and red tile roof, and its surroundings and appointments are up to the famous California standard at such resorts.
Hollywood is now continuous with the city, but it has lost none of that tropical beauty that has long made it famous. Embowered in flowers and palms, with an occasional lemon grove, its cozy and in some cases palatial homes never fail to charm the newcomer. Once it was known as the home of Paul de Longpre, the flower painter, whose Moorish-looking villa was the goal of the tourist and whose gorgeous creations were a never-failing wonder to the rural art critic. Alas, the once popular artist is dead and his art has been discredited by the wiseacres; he was "photographic"—indeed, they accuse him of producing colored photographs as original compositions. But peace be to the painter's ashes—whether the charge of his detractors be true or not, he delighted thousands with his highly colored representations of the blooms of the Golden State. His home and gardens have undergone extensive changes and improvements and it is still one of the show places of the town.
The Hollywood school buildings are typical of the substantial and handsome structures one sees everywhere in California; in equipment and advanced methods her schools are not surpassed by any state in the Union.
No stretch of road in California—and that is almost saying in all the world—is more tempting to the motorist than the twenty miles between Los Angeles and Long Beach. Broad, nearly level, and almost straight away, with perfect surface and not a depression to jolt or jar a swiftly speeding car, Long Beach Boulevard would put even a five-year-old model on its mettle. It is only the knowledge of frequent arrests and heavy fines that keeps one in reasonable bounds on such an ideal speedway and gives leisure to contemplate the prosperous farming lands on either side. Sugar beets, beans, and small grains are all green and thriving, for most of the fields are irrigated. There is an occasional walnut grove along the way and in places the road is bordered with ranks of tall eucalyptus trees, stately and fragrant. Several fine suburban homes adjoin the boulevard and it is doubtless destined to be solidly bordered with such.
Long Beach is the largest of the suburban seaside towns—the new census gives it a population of over 55,000—and is more a place of homes than its neighbor, Venice. Its beach and amusement concomitants are not its chief end of existence; it is a thriving city of pretty—though in the main unpretentious—homes bordering upon broad, well-paved streets, and it has a substantial and handsome business center. You will especially note its churches, some of them imposing stone structures that would do credit to the metropolis. Religious and moral sentiment is strong in Long Beach; it was a "dry" town, having abolished saloons by an overwhelming vote, long before prohibition became the law of the land. The town is pre-eminently the haven of a large number of eastern people who come to California for a considerable stay—as cheaply as it can possibly be done—and there are many lodging-houses and cottages to supply this demand. And it is surprising how economically and comfortably many of these people pass the winter months in the town and how regularly they return year after year. Many others have become permanent residents and among them you will find the most enthusiastic and uncompromising "boosters" for the town—and California. And, indeed, Long Beach is an ideal place for one to retire and take life easy; the climate is even more equable than that of Los Angeles; frost is almost unknown and the summer heat is tempered by the sea. The church and social activities appeal to many and the seaside amusement features are a good antidote for ennui. There are not a few old fellows who fall into a mild dissipation of some sort at one or the other of the catch-penny affairs along the promenade. I was amused at one of these—a grizzled old veteran, who confessed to being upwards of seventy—who could not resist the fascination of the shooting galleries; and I knew another well over eighty who was a regular bather in the surf all through the winter months.
A little to the east of Long Beach is Naples, another of the seaside towns, which has recently been connected with Long Beach by a fine boulevard. It gives promise of becoming a very pretty place, though at present it does not seem much frequented by tourists. About equally distant to the westward is San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles, and really a part of the city, a narrow strip some two miles wide connecting the village and metropolis. This was done to make Los Angeles an actual seaport and to encourage the improvement of San Pedro Harbor. The harbor is largely artificial, being enclosed by a stone breakwater built jointly by Government appropriations and by bond issues of the citizens of Los Angeles. The ocean is cut off by Catalina Island, which shelters San Pedro to some extent from the effects of heavy storms and makes the breakwater practicable. It is built of solid granite blocks of immense size, some of them weighing as much as forty tons each. It is a little more than two miles long and the water is forty-five feet deep at the outer end where the U. S. Lighthouse stands. There is no bar, and ocean-going vessels can go to anchor under their own steam. There are at present about eight miles of concrete wharfage and space permits increasing this to thirty miles as traffic may require. Improvements completed and under way represent an investment of more than twenty million dollars. The World War put San Pedro on the map as a great ship-building point; there are two large yards for construction of steel ships and one for wooden vessels. These will be of great interest to the tourist from inland states. A dry dock of sufficient capacity for the largest ocean-going steamers is under construction and will afford every facility for repairing and overhauling warships and merchant vessels. All of which indicates that Los Angeles' claim as an ocean port of first magnitude has a substantial foundation and that its early fulfillment is well assured. A broad boulevard now joins the widely separated parts of the city and a large proportion of the freight traffic goes over this in motor trucks, which, I am told, give cheaper and quicker service than the steam railroad.
Aside from the shipyards, San Pedro has not much to interest the tourist; there is a pretty park at Point Fermin from which one may view some magnificent coast scenery. A steep descent near at hand takes one down to an ancient Spanish ranch house curiously situated on the water's edge and hidden in a jungle of neglected palms and shrubbery. On an eminence overlooking the town and harbor is located Fort McArthur with several disappearing guns of immense caliber. There are also extensive naval barracks and storehouses on the wharf and usually several United States warships are riding at anchor in the harbor.
The new boulevard from San Pedro to Redondo, however, has quite enough of beauty to atone for any lack of it on the way to the harbor town from the city, especially if one is fortunate in the day. In springtime the low rounded hills on either side are covered with verdure—meadows and grain fields—and these are spangled with great dashes of blue flowers, which in some places have almost gained the mastery. The perfect road sweeps along the hillsides in wide curves and easy grades and there is little to hinder one from giving rein to the motor if he so elects. But we prefer an easy jog, pausing to gather a handful of the violet-blue flowers and to contemplate the glorious panorama which spreads out before us. Beyond a wide plain lie the mountain ranges, softened by a thin blue haze through which snow-capped summits gleam in the low afternoon sun. As we come over the hill just before reaching Redondo, the Pacific breaks into view—deep violet near the shore and shimmering blue out toward the horizon.
We enter the town by the main street, which follows the shore high above the sea and is bordered by many pleasant cottages almost hidden in flowers. It is one of the most beautifully situated of the coast towns, occupying a sharply rising hill which slopes down to a fine beach. On the bluff we pass a handsome park—its banks ablaze with amethyst sea moss—and the grounds of Hotel Redondo, (since closed and falling into decay) elaborately laid out and filled with semi-tropical plants and flowers, favored by the frostless climate. The air is redolent with fragrance, borne to us on the fresh sea-breeze and, altogether, our first impressions of Redondo are favorable indeed—nor has further acquaintance reversed our judgment.
There are the customary resort features, though these are not so numerous or extensive as at Venice. Still, Redondo is not free from the passion for the superlative everywhere prevalent in California, and proudly boasts of the "largest warm salt-water plunge on earth and the biggest dancing pavilion in the state." There is a good deal of fishing off shore, red deep-sea bass being the principal catch. Moonstones and variegated pebbles are common on the beach and there are shops for polishing and setting these in inexpensive styles. If you are not so fortunate as to pick up a stone yourself, you will be eagerly supplied with any quantity by numerous small urchins, for a slight consideration.