Why we moved back to Brentwood after six years in Hancock Park
I was raised in Brentwood, and for six years I lived in Hancock Park. Then we came back, three kids in tow, to the neighborhood where my family has been for five generations. People ask me about that move constantly, usually because they are weighing the same two zip codes themselves. So here is the honest version.
What Hancock Park gave us
Hancock Park is one of the best-kept secrets in Los Angeles for a certain kind of house: 1920s Spanish, Tudor and Colonial homes on wide, flat streets, with Larchmont Boulevard a short walk away for coffee and the Sunday farmers market. The blocks are quiet, the lots are deep, and the architecture has not been chased off by new construction the way it has in parts of the Westside. I have sold and leased homes there, on Lucerne, Arden and Highland among others, and I understand why people who live there rarely leave.
What it cannot give you is the ocean. On a hot September afternoon that matters more than you expect.
What pulled us back
Three things, in order of honesty.
First, roots. I am a fifth-generation Angeleno and I was raised in Brentwood. When you have three kids, raising them where you were raised is not nostalgia. It is a support system you did not have to build.
Second, the weather. Brentwood sits in the marine layer. The ocean air gets here in the afternoon, which is why the coral trees along San Vicente look the way they do and why the house stays cool with the windows open. Hancock Park in August is a different climate.
Third, the routine. My week runs along a short spine: the farmers market on Gretna Green on Sundays, the Country Mart for errands, Caffe Luxxe on San Vicente more often than I should admit, the beach at the bottom of the hill. I grew up with that spine. I wanted my kids to have it too.
What I tell clients deciding between the two
Drive both commutes at 8:15 on a Tuesday. Not on Saturday, when every neighborhood in Los Angeles looks reasonable. Hancock Park puts you close to Hollywood, Koreatown, Downtown and the studios along the Wilshire corridor. Brentwood puts you close to Santa Monica, the Palisades, UCLA and the beach, and it puts the 405 between you and almost everything else. Your car tells you where you should live long before I do.
Then look at what the money buys. In Hancock Park it tends to buy an older house with original detail on a larger, flatter lot. In Brentwood it buys proximity, a newer or renovated house, and in the canyons, a view. Neither is better. They are different purchases, and the mistake I see is people buying one while wanting the other.
Last, walk the block at 6 p.m. with the windows down. Listen for the freeway, the flight path, the neighbor's dog. A house is a 30-minute decision. The block is a 10-year one.
The part nobody says
Coming home to the neighborhood you grew up in is strange for about a year. You know the streets but not the people, and then one morning at the market you realize you know both. That was when it felt like we had moved back for good.
Questions about a street, a house or a number? Text or call me at 310.498.1415, or email cwgrazianorealty@gmail.com.
Christina Woodward Graziano is a California real estate licensee (DRE #02072713) with Keller Williams Beverly Hills, 439 N. Canon Drive, Penthouse, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Each Keller Williams office is independently owned and operated. Equal Housing Opportunity. This post is general information from one agent, not legal, tax, insurance or financial advice; talk to your own professionals before you act on it. Business mentions are personal opinion. Nobody paid to be in this post.