Birthplace of the ‘Burbs
When Mike and Darlene Neilsen decided to move from their longtime home in north Long Beach, they had a specific goal:
They hoped to find a community where neighbors took pride in maintaining their property, and they didn’t want to live on a through street.
They found the right fit in Lakewood, a city of 78,000 in southeast Los Angeles County that is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year.
Mike Neilsen, 49, an electrician for Los Angeles Unified School District, and his wife, an education consultant, felt their old neighborhood was becoming less safe.
They sought out a quiet street in Lakewood and moved into their three-bedroom house in February 1998 with two of their four children.
The home, purchased with the help of Long Beach ReMax agent Joe DiTore for $168,000, still has the original 1950s metal kitchen cabinets and Formica counters, which Darlene said her kids appreciate for their retro chic.
And the neighbors seem to share the Neilsens’ energy for sprucing up their homes and yards.
“It’s a place where I feel like my property values are increasing, not decreasing,” said Darlene, 48.
Lakewood, California’s first major mass-produced subdivision, sprang to life in the early 1950s, when thousands of young families flocked to buy into the American dream in a booming postwar economy.
Using assembly-line methods, workers built as many as 100 homes a day between 1950 and 1953, according to city spokesman Don Waldie, author of “Holy Land,” a book based in part on the city’s history.
On 3,500 acres of what was once farmland, developers Louis Boyar, Mark Taper and Ben Weingart built more than 17,000 homes, each on lots of 50 by 100 feet.
When the homes went on sale in April 1950, as many as 25,000 people visited the sales office in one weekend. Seven models were available, all compact, one story houses with
two or three bedrooms.
Jacqueline Rynerson, 78, remembers touring the model homes and studying the wall map of soon-to-be-built tract homes.
“[You] put a pin on the map and there’s where you were going to be,” Rynerson said.
She was pregnant with her third child when she and her husband, Dewain “Bud” Rynerson, bought their three-bedroom Lakewood home for $10,750 and moved in on Labor Day 1952.
The couple still live in the home, although they added a second story in the 1960s to make room for more children.
Over the years, many Lakewood residents have customized their houses with additions and landscaping, giving street scapes considerably more character than is revealed in 1950s-era photos of look-alike homes on a grid of brand new roadways.
Rynerson, who went on to serve as a commissioner, councilwoman and mayor of this mostly middle-class city, was one of many residents who fought efforts by Long Beach to annex Lakewood in the early ‘50s. Lakewood incorporated in 1954 and, after some annexation of its own, is now 9 1/2 square miles and includes 10 major parks, including one named in Rynerson’s honor.
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On the south and west, Lakewood is bordered by Long Beach. Bellflower and Cerritos are to the north, and Cypress and Hawaiian Gardens ring the city’s eastern edge, which lies across the San Gabriel River from the civic center.
The city is about 64% white and 20% Latino, with Asian American and African American residents making up 12% and 4% of the population, respectively, according to data from the Southern California Assn. of Governments.
Rynerson said she and her husband have stayed in Lakewood through the years in part because of the city’s small-town feel and the spirit of volunteerism and civic pride that have flourished since the days of the cityhood movement.
This year, the city celebrated its past and present by naming 45 “everyday heroes” who contribute to Lakewood’s civic life in various ways. City officials also sponsored a “1954 Night at the Movies” event at the new multiscreen theater complex in Lakewood Center Mall, the state’s oldest regional shopping mall and still one of Lakewood’s only commercial centers.
Linda Borza and her husband, Paul, remember exactly when the spirit of community was born on their street. One night in 1991, an explosion badly injured the three residents of a home down the street from the Borzas. A leak had filled the home with gas, which ignited a fiery blast, blowing the roof off the house.
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Neighbors ran to help the injured residents, Paul Borza said, and the tragedy eventually brought them closer together. A Neighborhood Watch effort began, along with the formation of community groups and social events.
“All of a sudden, we knew everybody’s names,” said Paul Borza, 49, a computer specialist for a South Bay newspaper.
The Borzas moved to Lakewood nearly 13 years ago and have a 10-year-old son, Will. Linda Borza, 43, a part-time aide at Will’s school, was named an Everyday Hero for her involvement with Neighborhood Watch, community emergency preparedness and Sheriff’s Department crime-prevention programs.
The Borzas and other Lakewood residents said city officials respond quickly to resident complaints and emergencies. And Lakewood residents proudly note that their city pioneered the practice of contracting with county agencies for municipal services such as fire and police protection.
“I love encouraging people to take a look at [Lakewood], because it’s such a great city,” Linda Borza said.
Most of the two- and three-bedroom homes in Lakewood are between 800 and 1,250 square feet and range in price from $150,000 to $200,000, said real estate agent Dave Emerson of Mulhearn Realtors in Lakewood.
The exception is the Lakewood Country Club neighborhood, an area of custom homes surrounding a golf club and Bouton Lake, which some say was the source of the city’s name.
Homes in the Country Club area sell for between about $300,000 and $800,000, Emerson said.
Bill Burris found his Country Club home after a three-week whirlwind search. He had sold his Huntington Beach home suddenly, when a real estate agent acquaintance brought him a purchase offer he couldn’t refuse. After driving long hours through cities from Manhattan Beach to Long Beach, Burris happened into Lakewood Country Club and found agent Jill Rosenberg’s name on a lawn sign.
Rosenberg understood exactly what kind of house Burris wanted--the only trouble was that the one she had in mind wasn’t listed. Rosenberg convinced the owners of a remodeled three-bedroom, six-bath ranch-style home to show their house to Burris.
The meeting went well, and Burris, 42, moved into his new home in July 1998.
An engineer for Toyota and Lexus in Torrance, Burris paid $650,000 for the house, which has a pool, pool house and separate office.
Buyer and sellers threw a joint “going and coming” party at the house so neighbors could both say goodbye to the former owners and meet their new neighbor.
“This is the kind of thing that doesn’t happen everywhere,” Burris said. “It’s the type of thing you always hope for, and when it happens you think, ‘This is so cool.’ ”
As is typical of the stability of many Lakewood neighborhoods, two of the families living across the street from Burris have owned their homes more than 30 years.
Lakewood residents say one of the primary challenges facing the city is the effort to form its own school district. The 22 schools in Lakewood are split among four area school districts--ABC, Bellflower, Paramount and Long Beach--and many local parents and city officials have labored unsuccessfully for years to change that.
Another local issue is the federal requirement that homeowners in the area possess flood insurance. Because Lakewood is one of several cities that could be affected by periodic flooding of the Los Angeles River, residents must buy insurance.
Opponents of the requirement say this amounts to a special flood tax on thousands of southeast county residents and are lobbying Congress to allocate enough money to restore flood control systems that would free homeowners from the insurance burden.
Six years ago, the local news was much more sensational. The city gained unwanted national attention in 1993 when a group of Lakewood High School boys who called themselves the Spur Posse were arrested in connection with a “sex for points” gang.
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Although the Sheriff’s Department presented 17 cases to the district attorney’s office, ultimately only two boys were sentenced for sexual misconduct. In the wake of the sexual allegations, another Spur Posse member was convicted of fraud and burglary after he used credit cards he had stolen from the home of some junior high school girls.
Though not much is heard about the scandal anymore, Jacqueline Rynerson said residents were devastated at the time. But for Millie Bisono, 42, nothing could tarnish her memories of Lakewood.
Moving there last year from Georgia was a homecoming of sorts--she’d lived in Southern California before and was excited to be returning. Because she would be taking care of her elderly parents in her home, she wanted to find a place where neighbors looked out for each other and where services for seniors were available.
With the help of Leon Wasserman of Mulhearn Realtors, Bisono found a three-bedroom home with a loft, a pool, hardwood floors and central air-conditioning for about $225,000 in July 1998.
Bisono, human resources director for a large hotel, praises Lakewood Regional Medical Center and the city’s senior services.
And the neighbors have already pitched in. They helped put up Bisono’s Christmas tree, and when her father took a fall recently, a neighbor came over and assisted the family through a traumatic day.
“I didn’t look back twice,” said Bisono of her relocation. “I was coming back to a place where I had a lot of family and friends and roots.”
