Mandeville Canyon (Los Angeles, California)

 Upload a photo

Mandeville Canyon is a small community in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Its center is Mandeville Canyon Road, which begins at Sunset Boulevard and extends north towards Mulholland Drive, though it stops short of Mulholland and there is no automotive route between the two.

Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica included Mandeville Canyon and consisted of all the property above what is now Pico Boulevard out to the ocean, north to the Santa Monica Mountains towards what is now Encino, east along what is now Ventura Boulevard, and south down to Pico Boulevard.

In 1872, the Sepulveda family decided to sell their property for $55,000 (less than $2.00/acre) in gold coin to Colonel Robert S. Baker and his wife Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker, who thought it would make an excellent sheep ranch. The Bakers owned the 30,000-acre (120 km2) property for only two years and in 1874 sold a 3/4 interest in the land for $162,000 to silver miner Nevada Senator John P. Jones.

Mandeville Canyon at that time was known as Casa Viejo Cañon. An 1881 map using this name shows the Casa Viejo Creek running down the middle of our canyon. Records show that the creek carried water year-round, fed by springs in the upper canyon. The name Mandeville Canyon first appeared on a map in the early 1900s as “Mandiville Canon.” The origin of the name is unknown.