What it’s like growing up in Palos Verdes, CA
A troubled paradise
It’s a peculiar place where streetlights and sidewalks are outlawed. Winding roads lined with gated driveways lead to cliffside mansions. There is one mall that feels more like a ghost town and a movie theater that provides the only entertainment in the city. It is home to the only 7-11 in the known world that closes before dark.
CEO fathers with their designer suits and Italian leather briefcases leave early for work and return home to their posh tennis-playing wives and stressed children. Next door, an elderly woman gets her mail and spends her day complaining to the art jury that her neighbor’s tree is blocking a fraction of her panoramic view of Malibu and downtown Los Angeles. She can’t seem to find her dentures.
From the outside, it looks like a utopian paradise. Palos Verdes is an affluent beach town 28 miles south of Los Angeles. It is filled with palm trees, big surf, and Spanish style homes that frequently sell for tens of millions of dollars. But growing up here, you learn to see through the guise. Opulent parties are frequently filled with forced smiles and too much booze and kids are put under so much pressure to succeed that they often become depressed or addicted.
Head toward the water and you will find a middle-aged gang of men known as the “Bay Boys” that will harass anyone who tries to surf their precious Lunada Bay. The bored police officers turn a blind eye, but spend their days ticketing high school students for driving 5mph too fast. I was once detained by a mall cop for going down an escalator “wearing loosely fitting shoes and also shorts.” She banned me from our only mall for six months.
Despite all of its oddities, Palos Verdes is still home. If you aren’t careful, this bubble of a town can easily skew your perceptions of reality, but look hard enough and you will find the gems it has to offer. In the not-so-distant geological past it was an island. Now, it contains rare wildlife, whale watching, and some of the best hiking and views on the west coast. If anything, Palos Verdes is living proof that money can destroy your happiness just as easily as it can create it.
Remnants of the SS Dominator, shipwrecked on the Palos Verdes Coast in 1961
Lunada Bay at sunset