Rancho Park

Rancho Park is a small district in western Los Angeles, California. It is sometimes, in phone books, referred to as Home Junction.

Geography

It is bordered by Palms on the south, West Los Angeles on the west, Westwood on the northwest, Cheviot Hills on the Southeast and South Robertson on the east. The district's boundaries, while somewhat ill-defined, are generally considered to be the San Diego Freeway (I-405) on the west, Olympic Boulevard on the north, Manning Avenue (south of Pico Boulevard) and Beverly Glen Boulevard (north of Pico) on the east, and the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) on the south. (Los Angeles Department of Neighborhood Empowerment signs mark Olympic Boulevard as the district's northern boundary.) Major thoroughfares include Pico, Westwood, Olympic, Sepulveda, and Beverly Glen Boulevards, nearby Santa Monica Boulevard, along with Overland and Manning Avenues.

The Neighborhood

Rancho Park was developed in the 1920s as a middle-class area, and most of its housing stock consists of modestly sized Spanish Colonial bungalows and ranch houses. Apart from the heavily traveled stretch of Pico Boulevard (including the Westside Pavilion shopping mall) in its central portions, the district has a notably quiet, suburban feel. The district's streets are equipped with faux 19th-century streetlights and feature large deciduous trees in the strips between the sidewalk and the street. (Rancho Park is one of the few districts in Los Angeles where fall foliage can be seen.) While not as upscale as Cheviot Hills or Brentwood, it is generally a fairly affluent area.

Since 2002, the ongoing reconstruction of Santa Monica Boulevard has considerably disrupted the neighborhood's quiet: as Overland Avenue provides a direct route between Santa Monica Boulevard and the Santa Monica Freeway, it has become a favorite thoroughfare for trucks traveling from industrial areas to the construction site.