In 1905, the residential tracts in the new Westgate Subdivision, which joined “the beautiful Soldier’s Home” at the Westgate entrance, were sold by the Santa Monica Land and Water Company. Colonel Robert S. Baker and Senator John P. Jones formed the Santa Monica Land & Water Company. They sold the company to Robert C. Gillis in 1904 before the first Westgate development.
To zoom in, right click on the Westage Map, then click on “open link in new window”. Click on the image to zoom in and use Vertical and Horizontal slide bars to Pan.
Westgate was the first of several developments that Santa Monica Land and Water Company planned in connection with the westward development of land between the Soldiers Home and Santa Monica. Future real estate tracts would not be marketed to attract low income Veteran Pensioners as did Sawtelle and Westgate, that bordered the Soldier’s Home (The Westgate location of the Soldier’s Home at Federal avenue and San Vicente Blvd.), instead, in anticipation of escalating property values as development moved toward Santa Monica and the ocean, those residential tracts targeted a more prosperous class of real estate investor and Buyer.
Because Westgate was located just outside the West gate of the Soldiers Home, many Veterans purchased small retagular lots there for construction of their small wood framwed bungalows. It seemed obvious to Sawtelle’s businessmen that Westgate should be included within their new city limits. (Sawtelle was on the verge of becoming an Incorporated City in 1906) Undoubtedly, they envisioned the rapidly appreciating property values in Westgate as a welcome addition to their new city’s tax base. However, Westgate residents and the Santa Monica Land and Water Company (The Gillis Brothers), Westgate’s developer, refused to become a part of the new city of Sawtelle and chose to remain an unincorporated city to the delight of the local Westgate community, made up of many Veterans who did not wish to pay city Taxes to Sawtelle. Meanwhile, the City of Los Angeles had its coveteous eyes on the tax base of not only Westgate but Sawtelle also and found a way to cunningly sway them over to their side, thru fresh water systems using the infrastructure maintained by the city of Los Angeles itself.
This is to be continued when I get time to give more detail and a Times newspaper clipping to explain the Westgate and Sawtelle water problems and the City of Los Angeles refusal to help unless sawtelle………….
The Westgate area became annexed to the City of Los Angeles on June 14, 1916 and included a large territory which was later to become Brentwood north of Sawtelle and Westwood east of Sawtelle. See the link: https://www.loc.gov/item/2006627663/.
As discussed in other articles, Sawtelle was annexed to the city of Los Angeles in 1922.
The Soldier’s Home north of Sawtelle served as an attraction for both tourists and local real estate speculators. In 1904, the Soldier’s Home became a stop on the Los Angeles Pacific Electric Railway “Balloon Route”, a popular tour of local attractions conducted by an entrepreneur who escorted tourists via a rented streetcar, often from downtown Los Angeles to the ocean and back. Most new subdivisions were on or near the line of trolley cars as was the case with the Westgate development.
The Pacific Electric Railway Westgate Line (Baloon Route) heading westward from Los Angeles cut north from Santa Monica Blvd. in Sawtelle, between Butler & Purdue Avenues. The line continued on a private right of way through the old soldiers’ home. Northward, it crossed Wilshire Blvd inside the old Soldier’s home and stopped at the intersection of Federal avenue and San Vicente Blvd. which was the Westgate entrance to the Soldier’s Home. After finishing it’s incursion into the Soldier’s Home and taking photos there, it continued on the San Vicente median right of way to Ocean Ave in Santa Monica. This was known as the “Westgate Line.” (Westgate was later named Brentwood) The line was abandoned in June of 1940.
San Vicente Blvd. at that time terminated at the Westgate entrance to the Soldier’s Home. You would then take Federal avenue south to Wilshire Blvd. The small stretch of Federal avenue from San Vicente to Wilshire was the old main business area for Westgate. Today, Federal avenue does not exist north of Wilshire, but has been extensively widened, renamed San Vicente Blvd to Wilshire and has been redeveloped into a “Brentwood style” business district..
In 1905, small residential lots and larger tracts in the new Westgate Subdivision, which joined “the beautiful Soldier’s Home” at the westgate entrance, were sold by the Santa Monica Land and Water Company.
Grading for streets in Westgate began in 1904. San Vicente Boulevard was laid out as a broad avenue with a wide center median for two sets of trolley tracks, flanked on each side by an oiled surface (later paved) with curbs for automobile traffic. In 1906, the Westgate streetcar line opened along San Vicente, making it the primary travel route through Westgate and facilitating the opening of several adjacent residential tracts as well as subsequent commercial development.
The small enclave called “Westgate” that bordered the Soldiers Home, lots were sold to Veterans and Pensioners. Today, Westgate has been fully incorporated into Brentwood and the original “Westgate” is a memory of the past. A small section of Westgate was declared a class D or Redlined Poverty (Slum) area as noted in the 1939 HOLC Map below. During the 1930s Depression, the HOLC (Home Owners’ Loan Corporation), a New Deal agency established by Congress in 1933, refinanced mortgages for over a million struggling homeowners. The HOLC relieved approved Homeowners in the best “Color coded” areas by taking over their Mortgages which were in default to prevent foreclosure and replaced them with new Mortgages whose terms were much easier. In the 1930s, government assessors rated neighborhoods in Los Angeles by color-coding them green for “best,” blue for “still desirable,” yellow for “definitely declining” and red for “hazardous.” The “red” areas were the ones counted as credit risks and considered to be in full decline by the HOLC, based on various factors: Home price value, Rental rate, Physical location of the property, Infiltration of foreign born Minorities, Low income and Racial population.
Federal Avenue north of Wilshire (now San Vicente) was the main business street for Westgate. In the 1940s Westgate was nicknamed “El Hoyo” (A large poverty hole) by those of Mexican Ancestry, who lived and rented in that low income area. Those of Mexican Ancestry living in the Westside in the 1930s and 1940s, would commonly use names like El Hoyo (Brentwood, Old Westgate area near the Soldier’s Home), Sotel (Sawtelle), La Garra (The Rag, Sawtelle just west of the Sepulveda Blvd. Southern Pacific Train Tracks), La Chiva (The female Goat – Venice), Las Palmas (Palms) and La Veinte (Santa Monica City at 20th and Olympic Blvd.).
“Gentrification” of Westgate began in the early 1950s and 1960s redevelopment period, and today, not a single original “wood framed” shack like house has been left standing, but replaced with two story apartments, transforming that old Westgate area into an Apartment Community. Since then, multiple story Condos and new multiple story Apartment structures have replaced many of the older two story 1950s and 1960s apartments.
In the late 1930s, a proposal to Bulldoze the slums away as a “Slum Clearance” project was made but never came about. The gentrification of Westgate in the 1950s to Bulldoze away the single family wood framed shacks & Slums (built in the early 1900s) and recreate the enclave into an Apartment community, finished off Westgate as a single private Home community near the Soldier’s Home. If those old dwellings in that part of old Westgate were Big, Spacious and beautiful, built on large lots, they no doubt would not have been demolished but the fact that the area witnessed massive apartment construction attests to the fact that they were eyesores, especially for Brentwood.
I ran across this article that confirms a Slum area existed in 1938 at the location that was called the Federal avenue-San Vicente District but in reality was actually part of the old Westgate District area near the Soldier’s Home in Brentwood and extended into the Sawtelle area south of Wilshire Blvd. This area, labeled as a “Slum clearance area”, allowed for Government funds to be available, to Bulldoze the “shacks” away and build low cost housing “Projects”. It almost seemed like an embarrassment to the writer of the article to identify the area as Brentwood but calls it West Los Angeles, a vague name which could mean, the old Sawtelle or the old Westgate districts.
Other Sources: The Soldiers’ City: Sawtelle, California, 1897–1922 by Cheryl L. Wilkinson and the Santa Monica evening outlook. See the Link 1939—HOLC Map of Sawtelle Poverty area The map in this article also shows Brentwood.
Sawtelle California 1897 to 1950 