municipal – Golf Historical Society

May 18, 2016
Armand Hammer/Holmby Park golf course’s 87th birthday!
by J.I.B. Jones

1926_artist_drawing_proposed_Holmby_Hills_Park — 1926 Proposal for Holmby Park

Before California statehood in 1850, Holmby Park was part of the 4438 acre Rancho San Jose de Buenos Ayres, where cattle were raised under Don Benito Wilson. In 1884 the land was purchased by John Wolfskill, a forty-niner and former state Senator, who also owned the 13,000 acre Escondido ranch in San Diego county. The land was known as the Wolfskill ranch, before and after the failed boom town of Sunset.

In 1919 Arthur Letts, Sr., the merchant prince of Los Angeles, and the founder of Broadway Department Stores, bought the 3296 acre Wolfskill Ranch for a real estate development. The boundaries were roughly Bel Air on the north, with Pico south, and from the Los Angeles Country Club west to Sepulveda boulevard. The area was marketed by the Janss Investment Corporation and named Westwood. The south eastern section, which included the future Century City, was called Westwood Hills.

1905_letts_holmby_house — Holmby House, Laughlin Park, Rancho Los Felis

L.A.C.C. member Arthur Letts named the Holmby Hills area, as he had his nearby home in Laughlin Park; Holmby House. In 1927, his golfing mad son; Arthur Letts Jr., built his own rambling English type house overlooking the country club. It became the infamous Playboy Mansion West in 1971.

It was the company of Letts’ son in law Harold Janss who donated the land in 1926 to the city of Los Angeles, and it was Park Commissioner Van Griffith, son of Griffith Park donor Griffith J. Griffith, who was the father of the new idea of a bowling green and a pony golf course for the park.

1936_holmby_bowling_ad_clip — 1936 Janss Investment Corporation advert

It is likely that William P. Bell and or George C. Thomas Jr. designed the original layout, which was revamped in 1940 under Parks superintendent William Johnson. Alterations, mainly due to providing common park areas at the north end of the park, have reduced the size of the course over the years.

In 1981 Holmby Park Golf Course was threatened with closure, due to a city of Los Angeles budget crisis, but was saved at the last minute by neighbors Hugh Hefner of Playboy Mansion West (the Arthur Letts Jr. house), and Occidental Petroleum billionaire Armand Hammer, whose name now adorns the course.

2012 - holmby - hole and clubhouse sm — Holmby Park green and clubhouse in January 2012

The Golf Division of the Department of Recreation and Parks (RAP) of the City of Los Angeles has been operating the 18-hole pony course and bowling greens since 1926.

Happy 87th Birthday Holmby Park!

Golf Historical Society

Tag: municipal

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