An ad from 1911 in the Los Angeles Herald for the newly-christened Arch Beach Heights neighborhood.
This ad from 1911 in the Los Angeles Herald is for a neighborhood in Laguna Beach – Arch Beach Heights – that I adore for a couple of reasons – because my Dad used to live there but also because it has a colorful history.
I’ve been collecting ads + historical facts on Arch Beach Heights for years and used to run a website just dedicated to the neighborhood, but that got hacked and so had to take it down (sidebar – running websites these days feels like trying to raise vegetables on a floating barn door in the surf…)
There are several running myths about the neighborhood’s origins that I have never been able to substantiate – legend has it you could get a free lot with a subscription to the LA Times, a free lot with an encyclopedia set purchase or as a “gate gift” at early entertainment venues in town circa the 1910’s. While I’ve never seen anything in writing about those giveaways, I do have a plethora of ads from 1911 – 1913 that advertise the lots for $10 each. While that, of course, sounds like a ridiculously cheap amount now, it was a smashing bargain even then.
In 1910 – 1920, Laguna was only just beginning to be more than just a place on a map. Homesteaders had been there for some years, starting in the 1890’s, but until the 1910’s, it was mostly just a picturesque place away from the bustle of Santa Ana and Los Angeles. Development began in earnest in those days and lots began to be subdivided; one of the areas was the “Arch Beach” region which was still separate from Laguna Beach proper (was incorporated years later). The $10 lots were advertised to get folks down to Arch Beach proper, which was a coastline community with the hope that they’d get there and want to buy a more expensive lot on the coast, which were selling for closer to $500/lot. The $10 lots were landlocked with no road access up on the hill and while they did sell quickly, in time they would almost all go back to the county in a cascade of tax defaults in the 30’s, but that is another story that I’ll tell another time.
