Country Club Park, Los Angeles

Northbound Crenshaw Boulevard on the western edge of Country Club Park.

Country Club Park is a neighborhood in the Mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles, California.

Geography and transportation

Country Club Park's is bounded approximately by Olympic Boulevard to the north, Western Avenue to the east, Pico Boulevard to the south, and Crenshaw Boulevard to the west. The district is bordered by Olympic Park to the west, Wilshire Park to the north, Koreatown to the east, Harvard Heights to the southeast, and Arlington Heights to the south. Major thoroughfares in the district include Olympic Boulevard and Country Club Drive. Most of the district is in ZIP code 90019.

The neighborhood

While some homes are modest, many of them are comparable in size and splendor to what you would see in Hancock Park. Country Club Park is a generally upscale district of single family homes, Art Deco bungalows and apartment buildings.

The area was developed from the 1910s onward as a whites-only neighborhood, currently with whites still in the neighborhood many of which are gentrifying the area, but now also has populations of blacks (particularly in Lafayette Square), Asians (near Koreatown), and Latinos (throughout the district but especially in Mid-City), making it one of the city's most diverse areas. Some of the district's more affluent neighborhoods are quasi-gated communities, with access from the major thoroughfares barred by wrought iron fences.

The neighborhood has plenty of apartment buildings that vary in appearance from well-maintained to badly in need of maintenance. However, the jewel of Country Club Park has to be the area around the intersection of 12th Street and Westchester Place. The network of streets surrounding the grounds of the Claretian Retreat Center contain some of the nicest homes in the neighborhood.

According to the LA Conservancy, from 1899 to 1905 the 250-acre (1.0 km²) Los Angeles Country Club was the primary feature of the neighborhood. The club was moved to Wilshire Bouelvard (just west of Beverly Hills), allowing Isaac Milbank's Country Club Park real estate company to subdivide the land for housing.

The brochure goes on to explain that "most of the homes in the area were built in the teens and twenties. Rows of intact and well-maintained Mediterranean “villas,” Tudor castles, Craftsman bungalows and late Victorian Queen Annes harmoniously line the streets, nurtured by the residents’ pride in and care for their neighborhood."

Most of Country Club Park was developed between 1910 and 1930. Originally segregated, it was one of the first affluent communities to allow African American residents, making it an early destination for upwardly-mobile blacks. Notable residents of the neighborhood have included Mahalia Jackson, Lou Rawls, Lena Horne, Hattie McDaniel, Tuskeegee Airman Celes King and many others.

Notable attractions

The sprawling headquarters complex of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles is located in Country Club Park on Crenshaw Boulevard.