Where Your Neighbors Are Friends Too : Hollyglen: A safe, family neighborhood is how residents think of this part of Hawthorne. Good schools and community spirit add allure.

Michelle and Jim Godes found their way to Hollyglen by chance. Until a year ago the Hawthorne neighborhood was unknown to Jim, a 28-year-old Century City attorney, and his wife, who were renting in Hermosa Beach.

But drawn by its accessibility to the San Diego Freeway, which flanks Hollyglen’s eastern border, he began using the area as a pickup point when car pooling to court in Long Beach. “It seemed nice and safe,” he said.

Intent on staying in the South Bay when they began hunting for their first house, the Godeses returned to Hollyglen as “the last bastion of affordable housing,” as Jim called the 1,100-home neighborhood.

“We just fell in love with this tract,” he said. “It was incredibly convenient for us, so close to the freeway. Yet you can’t even hear the freeway. And it was two miles from the beach, which was important to me.”

Added Michelle, also 28, a recruiter for MCI in Culver City: “I liked the neighborhood feeling. It was the kind of community I grew up in in Orange County and missed living in.”

The couple paid $288,000 for the 1,124-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bath house. A yard big enough for two dogs and complete with orange and peach trees, tomatoes and spearmint met another desire.

A big plus for the Godeses was the fact that the previous owners had remodeled the kitchen and bathroom.

“We’re not fixer-uppers,” Jim noted. “There were other houses in the same lot that we could have had for $10,000 or $15,000 less. It would have meant time and energy on our part.”

Lying to the east of Manhattan Beach and south of El Segundo, Hollyglen is bounded on the north by El Segundo Boulevard, on the south by Rosecrans Avenue, on the east by the San Diego Freeway and on the west by Aviation Boulevard.

The neighborhood is a popular choice for couples like the Godeses who find themselves priced out of the South Bay market. Employees of the surrounding industrial parks such as Hughes, Northrop, Xerox, and TRW are also attracted to the stone’s-throw drive to work. But to the rest of Southern California the community is a well-kept secret, and persuading home buyers to consider Hollyglen is not easy.

“You almost have to trick them to get them here,” said Carol Mayer of Shorewood Realtors. “I know, because I have been here 28 years and that is what happened to me,” she said with a laugh.

In 1961, Mayer and her husband bought a three-bedroom house for $23,500 as an interim residence. They were waiting for a chance to move to Manhattan Beach. They never left.

Their house has been remodeled twice, almost doubling in size as a new kitchen, marble fireplace, Jacuzzi tub and oak crown and base moldings, as well as a pool, were gradually added.

As Mayer discovered, the commercial hustle of Hawthorne, a city burdened by a rising crime rate, was hardly reflective of Hollyglen.

With traffic limited by only three entrances, Hollyglen is isolated from the rest of the city by the San Diego Freeway. This helps make it “real free of crime,” said Sgt. Vince Schiavi of the Hawthorne Police Department’s Community Relations Bureau.

Adding to its allure were a good school district, friendly neighbors and strong community pride. Said Mayer: “When we got here we got involved in our community. Raised our kids. There is no place we would rather live.”

Residents who moved into the tract when it opened in 1955 recall looking out on open farmland. The San Diego Freeway was still several years away and the promise of being “only 15 minutes from Westchester,” as a sales brochure said, was an added inducement.

“The original prices of the houses were $13,000 to $15,000, a couple hundred down and $70 a month,” said Sharon Pierce of ERA Edward Jenkins Realty. Young families, many of the husbands former servicemen, flocked to the homes.

Today, Pierce said, homes start in the high $250,000s to $270,000. Remodeling or additions such as family rooms bring the cost as high as $290,000.

Three years ago, 52 new homes were built in the center of Hollyglen. Called the Village Glen, and commonly referred to as “the big houses,” these 2,000-to-3,300-square-foot, two-story homes range in price from $400,000 to $440,000 and offer formal dining rooms, huge kitchens and two fireplaces.

Looking for a safe, family neighborhood, computer consultant Charles Welker bought a 1,200-square-foot, three-bedroom home in Hollyglen eight years ago for $125,000.

Especially important to Welker and his wife, Karen, who have six children at home, are the playing fields of Dana Junior High School, just down the block from his house and a stronghold of youth soccer and baseball programs.

Said Welker: “It’s just an ideal place to raise kids.”

The schools of the Wiseburn School District have also been a draw for families. Avid PTA participation by Hollyglen parents, as well as loyal, stable faculties, have contributed to the strong reputation the schools have gained over the years.

“I felt a great deal of interest in my children,” said Ruth Stocker, who with her husband, Robert, now retired from the Los Angeles school system, moved into the tract shortly after it was built. “The schools are one of the prime reasons the area has held up. There is a good feeling for the kids.”

However, Hawthorne High School is another story. Racial tension and student walkouts last year upset the equilibrium of the campus where many Hollyglen children will begin the 10th grade. But for parents with young children, the issue is yet to be faced.

No Hollyglen resident is without a story of feeling closely connected to his community.

Some newcomers talk about the surprise of being greeted by the Welcome Wagon. Others recount dinners with neighbors once a week. Still others mention the offer of a neighbor to help trim a tree or take in their newspaper.

“I met more people in one week here than I did in four years in Redondo Beach,” said Bill Harden, a business agent for the motion picture industry, who purchased a 1,900-square-foot home with his wife, Leslie, a year ago.

“It’s a nice atmosphere. Everyone is real friendly,” said Harden. “I think you get very good value for your money.” The couple paid $320,000 for their four-bedroom, two-bath home.

There is one neighbor--the Glasgow Strip--that has aroused considerable displeasure among Hollyglen residents.

The result of a scrapped Caltrans plan to widen the San Diego Freeway 20 years ago, the strip, a dirt pile that lies along Hollyglen’s eastern edge, has festered as an eyesore. Tired of seeing the land once occupied by several blocks of houses used as a dumping site, neighbors organized committees last year to clean it up.

“It is zoned urban open space. It is no good to anyone but us, and we want this to be a park,” said Carol Mayer, who has been active in the project.

Because a minimum bid was required, Hawthorne’s bid to buy the land (the only one) for $200,000 was rejected as too low. Subsequently, a bill introduced by Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D-Carson) that would have enabled Hawthorne to purchase the land was vetoed by then-Gov. George Deukmejian.

Undeterred, Mayer said, “We have decided to go right on with our project. We are trying to get 40 magnolia trees donated for the parkway.”

Nor is the matter closed. “It will be interesting to see what (Gov.) Pete Wilson will do with the next Assembly bill on the subject,” mused Kearney Saw, a member of the Hollyglen Tax Payers Assn. and a participant in the fight to reclaim the area.

Hawthorne City Manager Kenny Jue is very familiar with the community’s feisty spirit. “Hollyglen is probably the strongest political group in Hawthorne,” Jue said. “They go out and get the vote.”

Not only political issues unite the neighbors. The community is also bonded by casual daily pleasures.

“We kind of get to know people walking around. Just nodding, waving, stopping and talking,” said Tom Moore, who with his wife, Jenny, moved to Hollyglen three years ago with their son, Justin. “We go to the park. We see somebody working on a cabinet in their garage. We stop and talk for half an hour about this and that. It’s very open.”

Moore, a quality manager for Magnavox in Torrance, summed it up this way: “When we lived in north Redondo, it was a street. Here it is a neighborhood.”

AT A GLANCE Population

1990 estimate: 3,786

1980-90 change: 12.9%

Median age: 36.7 years

Annual income

Per capita: $20,376

Median household: $59,149

Household distribution

Less than $15,000: 5.5%

$15,000 - $30,000: 7%

$30,000 - $50,000: 24.7%

$50,000 - $75,000: 34.2%

$75,000 + 28.3%