East Laurelwood Homeowners Association

Laurelwood at Laurel Canyon

Laurelwood is a pristine, planned community located off the famous Laural Canyon Road, just South of Mulholland Drive and North of Ventura Blvd. Nearby is Laurel Canyon Dog Park, Fryman Park and The Canyon Country Store. The community boasts great schools, unique architecture as well as many homes offer amazing views of the city and the valley.

The Laurel Canyon area was inhabited by the local Tongva tribe of Native Californians before the arrival of the Spanish. A spring-fed stream that flowed year round provided water. It was that water attracted Mexican ranchers who established sheep grazing on the hillsides in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. After the Mexican government was ejected, the area caught the attention of Angio settlers interested in water rights. Around the turn of the century, the area was subdivided and marketed as mountain vacation properties.

Between 1912 and 1918 a tracless electric trolley ran up the canyon from Sunset Blvd to the base of Lookout Mountain Road where a road house seved visitors. Travel to the newly subdivided lots and cabins further up the canyon was at first made on foot or by mule. As the roads were improved access was possible by automobile.

Around 1920, a local developer built the Lookout Mountain Inn at the summit of Lookout Mountain and Sunset Plaza roads, which burned just a few years after opening.

Amoung the famous places in Laurel Canyon are the log abin house once owned byu silent film star Tom Mix that later became home to the Zappa clan and another that magician harry Houdini may have lived in.

Laurel Canyon found itself a nexus of counterculture activity and attitudes in the 1960's, becoming famous as home to many of L.A's rock musicians, such as Frank Zappa, Jim Morrison (The Doors), The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and Love. Joni Mitchell, living in the home in the Canyon that was immortalized in the song, "Our House", written by her then-lover Graham nash, would use thearea and its denizens as inspiration for her third album, Ladies of the Canyon. That bohemian spirit endures today, and resident father annually for a group photograph at the country market.