Here are some fun facts you can use to impress people at parties:
- A peacock crossing the road is not an uncommon site in PV because 16 birds were given as a gift from the daughter of William Wrigley, Jr., who kept an aviary on Catalina Island, to early land investor Frank Vanderlip. It’s suspected the birds were introduced to PVE between 1960 and 1965 by former mayor Fred Roessler.
- The area is a magnet for outdoorsy types with excellent opportunities for running, hiking, horseback riding, surfing, scuba diving, biking and bird watching. One sport you won’t see any longer? Nude sunbathing at Sacred (Smugglers) Cove. A 1994 Rancho Palos Verdes city ordinance forbids such use of the beach.
- One of the trademark landmarks in RPV is the Wayfarers’ Chapel near Portuguese Bend. The glass church, designed by Frank’s son Lloyd Wright, was built by the Churches of the New Jerusalem in 1951 as a monument to 18th-century mystic Emanuel Swedenborg.
|
- Unfortunately, the primary tourist attraction of RPV for many years, Marineland, is no longer. While collecting the stock for the U.S.’s second oceanarium, teams pioneered techniques and invented devices still used today such as transport tanks, the hoop net, the sea life decompression chamber and the slurp gun. On opening day in 1954, they had assembled the nation's largest collection of marine life. In ‘57, they caught Bubbles, the first whale ever caught and kept alive in captivity. “Sea Hunt” with Lloyd Bridges was filmed there from 1958 to 1961. The space where it once stood now serves as an outdoor set for commercials, film productions, and the 1996 MTV Beach House.
- Thanks to landslides, lawsuits and a rare bird (California gnat-catcher), the most expensive golf course ever constructed is the newly opened Trump National Golf Club. A reported $300 million was spent over the years by Trump and the several builders who preceded him to make this 18-hole dream a reality.
- The teen novels The Tribes Of Palos Verdes by Joy Nicholson and The Mark Of Conte by Sonia Levitin describe life from a teenager's perspective in PV.
- PVP’s 90274 and RPV’s 90275 ranked 41 and 114 respectively on the Forbes Most Expensive Zip Codes list in 2005.
- Rolling Hills consists of a single gated community and nothing else. There aren’t even traffic lights.
|
