The story of the Hill
An island that joined the mainland, a rancho that became a dream city, a farming community the war took away, an oceanarium the world visited, and land that never stopped moving — the Peninsula's history is stranger and richer than its quiet streets let on.
From Tongva shores to the four cities
- First peoples
The Tongva Hill
For thousands of years the Peninsula's coves and springs supported Tongva (Gabrielino) communities — including the village of Chowigna at Malaga Cove, remembered today by a plaque near the site — who fished the kelp beds and traded across the channel to Pimu, Catalina. Shell middens along the bluffs still mark their long tenure.
- 1542
Sails off the Point
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo's expedition coasts the Peninsula — the first Europeans to record the smoky shoreline of San Pedro Bay.
- 1846
Rancho de los Palos Verdes
After decades of Sepúlveda family occupation, José Loreto and Juan Sepúlveda receive formal title to the 31,000-acre rancho — "the green trees" — running cattle over the entire Hill. Drought, debt, and decades of partition litigation unwind the rancho within a generation — the courtroom carve-up that makes the Bixby purchase possible.
- 1869
The whalers of Portuguese Bend
Azorean Portuguese whalemen build a shore station at the cove that takes their name, hunting migrating gray whales from small boats and rendering the blubber in great iron tryworks. Captain Frank Anderson's crews produce 2,166 barrels of oil from 1874 to 1877 before the station closes — California Historical Landmark No. 381, and the Hill's first industry.
- 1882
The Bixby years
Jotham Bixby acquires most of the Peninsula for sheep and cattle; dry-farming leases follow, and Japanese immigrant farmers begin coaxing beans, peas, and tomatoes from the terraced slopes.
- 1913
Vanderlip's gamble
New York banker Frank A. Vanderlip leads a syndicate that buys 16,000 acres — nearly the whole Hill — reportedly sight unseen. Walking the crest for the first time, he compares the coast to Amalfi and begins planning "a millionaires' colony" with the Olmsted Brothers landscape firm.
- 1922
The Project & the City of Dreams
The Palos Verdes Project launches the great planned suburb: Olmsted Jr.'s land plan, Cheney's protective restrictions, the Art Jury, and sales brochures promising "the most fascinating and beautiful residential city in America." Malaga Cove Plaza, La Venta Inn, and the first villas rise through the decade.
- 1920s–1942
The farming Hill — and its loss
Alongside the new suburb, some 200 Japanese-American families farm the Peninsula's slopes, hauling produce to the LA markets and building a deep community around the Hill. Executive Order 9066 ends it overnight in 1942: the families are interned, most losing their leases, equipment, and livelihoods. Most families' leases were never restored; only a handful — among them the Hatano and Ishibashi families — return to farm the coastal terraces after the war. For decades afterward, Annie's Stand, the little white produce stand Annie and Jim Ishibashi ran beside their fields on Palos Verdes Drive South near Abalone Cove, sold tomatoes, strawberries, and sweet corn to generations of Hill families — a beloved landmark into the 2000s, and the last working piece of the farming Hill. Their story is part of the ground here.
- 1936
Rolling Hills takes shape
A. E. Hanson lays out the white-fenced ranch community along the crest for the Palos Verdes Corporation; the RHCA is born with it.
- 1939
The first city
Palos Verdes Estates incorporates to defend the Project's plan and parklands through the Depression.
- 1940s–50s
The military Hill
War brings radar and gun installations to the crest and, in the Cold War, Nike missile batteries — including site LA-55 at Point Vicente, whose grounds later became Rancho Palos Verdes' civic center. The radar domes on San Pedro Hill still watch the approaches to LAX.
- 1954
Marineland of the Pacific
The world's largest oceanarium opens on Long Point — killer whales, the "Sky Tower," Hollywood film shoots, and three decades of school field trips — until its new owner (SeaWorld's parent, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) abruptly closes it in 1987, moves the orcas to San Diego, and demolishes the park — leaving Long Point empty for two decades.
- 1956
The land answers back
County crews extending Crenshaw Boulevard reactivate the ancient Portuguese Bend landslide. About 130–140 homes are destroyed or displaced as the coast begins a slow-motion migration to the sea — and it is not the last reactivation: the Abalone Cove slide follows in 1974 and Klondike Canyon around 1980.
- 1957
Two more cities
Rolling Hills (January) and Rolling Hills Estates (September) incorporate within months of each other, locking the equestrian Hill's character into law amid LA's postwar annexation wave.
- 1961
Schools unify — and a freighter misses
The Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District officially forms on July 1, after voters approved unification in October 1960, and Palos Verdes High opens on the bluff that September. Off Rocky Point, the Greek freighter Dominator runs aground in the fog; its rusting bones become the Hill's favorite macabre landmark for decades.
- 1973
Save Our Coastline
Facing county-approved plans for tens of thousands of new residents, coastal homeowners vote Rancho Palos Verdes into existence — the Hill's fourth and largest city, founded on open space.
- 1990s–2005
The Preserve idea wins
The Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy (founded 1988) and the City of RPV assemble the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve — about 1,500 acres today, within roughly 1,700 the Conservancy manages Hill-wide — saving the coastal sage hills from the last great development push and bringing the PV blue butterfly back from presumed extinction.
- 2009
Terranea rises on Long Point
After twenty years of debate over Marineland's ghost, the 102-acre resort opens — the Hill's biggest business and its new postcard.
- 2023–24
The wet years
Record rains accelerate the Greater Portuguese Bend slide complex to historic rates; Wayfarers Chapel — Lloyd Wright's 1951 glass sanctuary, named a National Historic Landmark in 2023, mere months before the ground forced its closure — is painstakingly dismantled for rebuilding, with Battery Barnes near RPV City Hall the intended site (not yet secured). RPV's dewatering campaign begins to slow the land. The Hill's oldest story, still being written. Current status: pvlandslide.com
The stories residents tell
The Falcon and the Snowman
The Hill's strangest true story: Christopher Boyce, a Peninsula-raised falconer working inside TRW's classified "black vault," and his childhood friend Andrew Daulton Lee sold spy-satellite secrets to the Soviets — caught in 1977, immortalized in Robert Lindsey's bestseller and the 1985 film with Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn. Boyce even escaped federal prison in 1980 and robbed banks before recapture. It all began in the quietest suburb in America.
Annie's Stand
After the war took nearly everything from the Hill's Japanese-American farmers, Annie and Jim Ishibashi came back and kept farming the coastal terraces — and their little white stand on Palos Verdes Drive South near Abalone Cove sold tomatoes, strawberries, and sweet corn to generations. When the stand finally faced demolition, the whole Hill mourned. Original illustration.
The Admiral Risty
Golden Cove's clifftop landmark opened in 1966 and became the Hill's default celebration room — prime rib, ocean out every window, and a bar that watched generations of the Hill grow up. It poured its last on Aug 17, 2019; a bank branch fills the building now, and the corner hasn't felt the same since. Original illustration.
More lore lives on the city pages — the peafowl descended from a Vanderlip-era gift, the ghost stories of the lighthouse keepers, the Dominator's bones on the rocks. Know a tale we should keep? Send it in.
Artifacts of the Hill
The banker who bought the Hill
Frank A. Vanderlip, president of National City Bank, whose syndicate purchased 16,000 acres of the Peninsula sight unseen. Library of Congress, public domain.
The planner
Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., who shaped the Palos Verdes Project's land plan — parklands first, houses second. National Park Service, public domain.
"The City of Dreams come true"
Another original Palos Verdes Project sales piece — the promise, in the Project's own words. Public domain, via the Internet Archive.
Selling the City of Dreams
An original Palos Verdes Project sales brochure — "Your home in Palos Verdes Estates" — from the campaign that filled the first villas. Public domain, via the Internet Archive.
Marineland postcard days
When the Hill hosted the world's largest oceanarium, and every mailbox in America might hold a picture of Long Point. Public domain postcard.
The Dominator on the rocks
The wrecked Greek freighter off Rocky Point, four years after grounding in the fog — photographed from the air by Robert J. Boser (CC BY-SA 3.0). Fragments remain in the surf today.
Wayfarers Chapel, 1951–2024 (for now)
Lloyd Wright's glass-and-redwood sanctuary above Abalone Cove — the "Tree Chapel" — hosted seventy years of Hill weddings, earned National Historic Landmark status in late 2023, and was closed by the moving ground within months. Every beam and pane was catalogued and removed; the planned rebuild site is Battery Barnes beside RPV City Hall, about a mile west, though it is not yet secured.
Wayfarers Chapel, 2018 · Sitao Xiang, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
For the Hill history-curious
Local History Center
The Palos Verdes Library District's Local History Center at Malaga Cove holds the Project archives, photographs, and oral histories. pvld.org
Point Vicente Interpretive Center
The Hill's museum: geology, Marineland, whaling-era relics, and the lighthouse story, on the bluff where it all happened.
City pages on this site
Each city guide carries its own timeline: RPV, PVE, Rolling Hills, RHE.