Los Feliz Movers

Getting to Know Los Feliz

How Los Feliz Sits

Los Feliz is an eastside neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles. It sits at the foot of Griffith Park and the eastern Santa Monica Mountains. Because the neighborhood sits inside the City of Los Angeles, a move here works under the Los Angeles Department of Transportation. There is no separate city hall, and the county is not involved. The neighborhood covers about 2.6 square miles and holds roughly 35,000 to 46,000 residents, depending on the source and the year. The density is among the highest in the county.

The terrain runs flat through the Village in the south. It climbs sharply north and east into the hills. Griffith Park forms the entire northern edge. The LA River runs along the east. Hyperion Avenue and Griffith Park Boulevard mark the southeastern boundary. Fountain Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard run south, and Western Avenue and Los Feliz Boulevard run west and northwest. Los Feliz borders Hollywood and the Hollywood Hills to the northwest, and Atwater Village to the northeast. Silver Lake lies to the southeast, and East Hollywood to the south.

Vermont Avenue and Hillhurst Avenue run as the main north-south arteries through the Village. The famous Vermont parkway median is lined by enormous old trees. Los Feliz Boulevard cuts east to west and divides the flats from the hills. The housing varies sharply by zone. Large view homes and a gated enclave fill the Los Feliz Hills. 1920s architectural showpieces fill Franklin Hills. Bungalows and older apartment buildings fill the Village.

From Rancho Los Feliz to the Eastside Village

The land was home to the Tongva people. In 1795, Spanish authorities granted the 6,647-acre Rancho Los Feliz to Corporal José Vicente Feliz. He was one of the original settlers of the Pueblo de Los Angeles. The rancho took in present-day Los Feliz along with the land that became Griffith Park. An adobe built by Feliz’s heirs around 1830 still stands inside the park today, off Crystal Springs Drive.

The rancho passed through several owners across the nineteenth century. In 1882, Colonel Griffith J. Griffith bought it. In 1896, he donated 3,015 acres to the city to create Griffith Park. The remainder was bequeathed to the city after he died in 1919. That gift set the entire northern edge of the neighborhood as parkland. It still shapes the place to this day.

The residential neighborhood filled in through the 1910s and 1920s. The flatter blocks along Vermont and Hillhurst grew into a walkable village of shops, cafes, and apartment buildings. The hillsides above filled with custom homes in Spanish, Tudor, Craftsman, and Mediterranean styles. Several of the country’s most significant pieces of early-twentieth-century architecture sit here. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Art Park opened in 1921, and his Ennis House on Glendower Avenue followed in 1924. Richard Neutra’s Lovell House dates to 1927. Walt Disney drew the first sketches of Mickey Mouse in 1928 in his uncle’s garage on Kingswell Avenue. The Griffith Observatory opened in 1933 on the ridge above the neighborhood. The Greek Theatre had opened in the park a few years earlier.

What a Los Feliz Move Really Involves

Los Feliz is part of the City of Los Angeles, so a move here works under LADOT rather than a separate city or the county. For larger moves, LADOT issues temporary no-parking permits to reserve curb space at the address. Our office pulls them and posts the signs ahead of the day. The permit matters across the neighborhood, but especially in the Village, where parking on the side streets off Vermont and Hillhurst is tight on most days and busier on weekends.

The grade is the next factor on a Los Feliz move. The Los Feliz Hills and the Franklin Hills carry many of the neighborhood’s homes up streets that climb sharply from the flats. The approaches are long, and the carries can run a full flight or more. Unusually for an LA hillside, many of the Los Feliz streets are wider than the canyon norm, and some even have sidewalks. The grade is still the grade, though, and a hillside home needs the right truck and a crew ready for the climb. We check the street, the grade, and the driveway before move day, and size the truck to suit.

Laughlin Park is the gated enclave of about sixty homes off Black Oak Drive. It runs its own access. Gate clearance, security check-in, and any HOA insurance requirements have to be arranged with the management ahead of the day. We handle that coordination as a standard part of a Laughlin Park move. Down in the Village, the older apartment buildings along Vermont, Hillhurst, and Franklin often need a freight elevator reservation and a certificate of insurance. The 1920s Spanish, Tudor, and Mediterranean homes in Franklin Hills and the surrounding blocks have narrow original doorways and original woodwork. Door, railing, and floor protection goes on as a matter of course. We settle the permit, the gate clearance, the building coordination, the protection plan, and the truck size before move day. The job is not held up once the crew is on site.