Rolling Hills Movers

Getting to Know Rolling Hills

How Rolling Hills Sits

Rolling Hills is an independent city atop the Palos Verdes Peninsula, in the hills above the Pacific in southwestern Los Angeles County. It is one of the most unusual cities in the county. The entire city is a single guard-gated community, with private roads reached through three staffed gates, no traffic lights, and no commercial district at all. Because it is its own city, it sets its own rules. Because it is gated, access to every property runs through the community’s gates and private roads.

The city is small, covering about three square miles, or roughly 1,900 acres, with only about 690 homes and a population of around 1,700. That makes it one of the least dense and most private cities in California. It sits high on the Palos Verdes Hills, with grand views of the ocean and Santa Catalina Island. It is laced with more than twenty miles of private roads and a similar length of equestrian trails. Rolling Hills borders Rolling Hills Estates to the north and Rancho Palos Verdes on its other sides.

The character is rural and equestrian by design. Lots are at least an acre, and homes sit far apart with open ground between them. Wide horse trails run along the streets and property lines. The homes themselves are single-story California ranch and Spanish hacienda styles. The community keeps strict standards on how they look, down to white exterior paint, and homeowners are expected to keep horse property or the room for it. The population is small and among the wealthiest in the country. The city has been ranked at the very top of national lists for home values.

From the Palos Verdes Project to a Gated City

The land was home to the Tongva people, and under Spanish and Mexican rule it became part of the vast Rancho de los Palos Verdes that covered the peninsula. In the early twentieth century, the financier Frank Vanderlip assembled the peninsula for development. After selling the coastal portion that became Palos Verdes Estates, he kept thousands of acres of the inland hills for later projects, including the land that would become Rolling Hills.

The community was the work of one planner. A.E. Hanson managed the Palos Verdes Corporation in the 1930s and went on to develop the gated equestrian community of Hidden Hills in the San Fernando Valley. He laid out Rolling Hills as a private, rural retreat built around horses and open space. He set the pattern that still holds: large lots, ranch-style homes, riding trails along every road, and gates at the entrances.

Rolling Hills became a city in its own right in 1957, one of the four cities of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. It built its City Hall in 1967. In the decades since, it has held to its founding character more strictly than almost any city in the region. It stayed gated, rural, and residential while the rest of Los Angeles County grew up around the peninsula. Today it remains what it was planned to be, a small and private equestrian city in the hills above the sea.

What a Rolling Hills Move Really Involves

Rolling Hills is its own city, but the part that shapes a move most is that it is entirely gated. Every move has to be cleared through one of the three guarded entrances and routed along private roads to the property. We arrange the gate access and any community association requirements well before move day. That coordination, more than a city parking permit, is the key to a smooth Rolling Hills move.

The land is the next factor. Lots here are at least an acre, and homes often sit far back from the road behind long driveways and gates. Horse trails and open ground surround them. That can mean a long carry from where the truck can park, a shuttle for the heaviest pieces, and care taken around the grounds and any equestrian areas. We check the driveway, the grade, and where the truck can sit before move day, and plan the carry around them.

The homes are the third factor. These are gracious single-story ranch and hacienda houses, often large and full of fine and high-value furnishings. Careful handling is the standard here, not the exception. We bring door, railing, and floor protection as a matter of course and plan the handling for fragile and valuable pieces in advance. We confirm the community certificate of insurance ahead of time. With the gate, the access, and the handling settled before move day, nothing slows the job once the crew arrives.