Getting to Know Larchmont
How Larchmont Sits
Larchmont is a neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles, not a separate city. Permits and parking rules for a move here run through the Los Angeles Department of Transportation rather than the local city hall. The neighborhood covers about half a square mile in central Los Angeles. It sits within the broader Windsor Square area and the Wilshire Community Plan. Boundaries run roughly from Melrose Avenue to the north, Wilton Place and Arden Boulevard to the east, Beverly Boulevard to the south, and Rimpau Boulevard to the west. Larchmont Boulevard runs as the main north-south axis through the neighborhood. The commercial strip sits on the 100 and 200 blocks between 1st Street and Beverly. The 101 Hollywood Freeway runs a few minutes north. Wilshire Boulevard runs a few minutes south.
Larchmont borders Hancock Park to the south and west, and Windsor Square to the southeast. Hollywood lies to the north, and Wilton Place and the Country Club Park area to the east. The neighborhood is almost entirely residential outside the boulevard strip. Single-family homes from the 1920s fill most of the streets, with small apartment buildings on certain blocks. Marlborough School sits at the southern edge. The private school was established before Larchmont itself was developed.
The housing is mostly older single-family, with a mix of 1920s Spanish Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, Craftsman, and Mediterranean homes. Older apartment stock fills the boundary streets. Many of the homes have been carefully restored over the decades. Original woodwork, tile work, and finishes have been preserved.
From Glenwood to Larchmont Boulevard
The land was home to the Tongva people. During the Spanish and Mexican eras, it sat at the eastern edge of the 5,000-acre Rancho La Brea. Through the late 1800s, the area was open grassland. Seasonal creeks crossed it and drained south toward Ballona Creek. The neighborhood was originally named Glenwood. The main north-south street that became Larchmont Boulevard was renamed Larchmont in 1912, most likely after Larchmont, New York, a Long Island Sound village that many transplant residents had connections to.
The story changed in 1920. The Los Angeles Railway launched a trolley line up Larchmont Boulevard, terminating at the Hollywood Mineral Hot Springs on Melrose. The street was laid out wider than usual to accommodate the trolley. That is why it remains a noticeably broad boulevard today. That same year, an entrepreneur named Julius La Bonte arrived from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He had sold an ironworks business there and bought a home on Arden Boulevard. La Bonte saw the trolley route as a perfect site for a commercial strip. In 1921, he and his partner Charles Ramson bought seven lots on Larchmont Boulevard. The plan was a business district of about thirty stores. Construction moved fast. By the end of the decade, La Bonte had built roughly seventy percent of the commercial structures on the 100 and 200 blocks. The boulevard had become the village’s main street it remains today.
The residential blocks were filled in alongside the boulevard in the same period. The 1920s Period Revival styles that define Larchmont’s residential character today emerged between 1921 and the late 1920s. The neighborhood has held that character ever since, even as the surrounding city has grown around it.
What a Larchmont Move Really Involves
Larchmont is a neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles, so a move here works under LADOT rather than a local city hall. For larger moves, LADOT issues temporary no-parking permits that hold curb space at the address. Our office files the application and posts the signs before move day. Parking is already tight in the neighborhood on a normal day. On weekend mornings, the boulevard fills up early with the farmers’ market and the cafe crowds. The reserved space keeps the truck close enough to the door for the carry to work.
The home itself is the next factor. The 1920s homes that fill most of the residential blocks have narrow original doorways, tight original staircases, tile floors, hardwood floors, and original woodwork. None of these can be repaired easily if they are scuffed. We bring door, railing, and floor protection as a matter of course. The carry path is planned so the crew is not turning oversized furniture in the tight original corridors. The apartment buildings on the boundary streets often require freight elevator reservations and a certificate of insurance from the building manager. We arrange both in advance.
The boulevard activity is the other timing factor. Saturday and Sunday mornings draw heavy foot traffic to Larchmont Boulevard, especially the Sunday farmers market. We schedule moves on the boulevard outside those peak hours where possible. The route in and out is planned around the boulevard’s busiest stretches. The wider street itself, though, is an asset rather than a problem for a truck. The permit, the building coordination, and the timing are settled before move day, so nothing slows the job once the crew is on site.