The story of the Fairfax District begins at the turn of the
20th century with a dramatic, life-changing moment for one young dairy farmer.

A.F. Gilmore, who moved to Los Angeles from Illinois in
1870, was sinking a well to water the herd of cows he grazed near the present
corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue when his drill struck oil — an
exciting development for the humans involved, less so for the thirsty
nonplussed cows.

Gilmore had stumbled upon the fabulously productive Salt
Lake Oil Field, a massive reservoir of 50 million barrels of crude oil that lay
under the parched 256-acre pasture he had purchased a few years before with a
$500 loan.

The find made Gilmore wealthy, while the property he owned
put him at the center of the expansion of the L.A. city limits in the 1920s and
1930s. The combination gave the flamboyant oilman tremendous influence on the
development of the land north of the new Miracle Mile shopping district.

He began to subdivide the unproductive portions of his oil
field to build neighborhoods of tidy little homes complete with driveways for
residents to park their cars, an important selling point in an area of the city
with no streetcar service.

Right from the beginning, these new developments became home
to a thriving Jewish community, either because the restrictive housing
covenants that drove housing discrimination in many parts of the city weren’t
in place, or because they weren’t enforced.

As L.A.’s Jewish community began relocating out of Boyle
Heights in the 1930s, Fairfax Avenue became a bustling shopping and dining
thoroughfare for local and immigrant Jews. In 1941, even Boyle Heights-based
Canter’s Deli bowed to the realities of this westward shift by opening a
Fairfax branch.

Besides enjoying access to fantastic deli food in “Kosher
Canyon,” residents also thronged to Gilmore’s Island, a massive shopping and
entertainment complex at 3rd and Fairfax that featured a racetrack, a stadium
where the Hollywood Stars played baseball and a drive-in theater. The land on
which this wonderland stood now hosts the Grove, CBS Television City and the
long running Farmers Market — the last of the Gilmore attractions, but another
example of how one man’s lucky break shaped one of our great neighborhoods.

Neighborhood
highlights

Shop (and star-watch) till you drop: Touristy, crowded and
hugely influential, the Grove is a great place to shop and to gawk at TV stars
doing the same thing you are: wondering why those trolley rides are so popular.

Something for everyone: Fairfax is a place where you can get
a bowl of matzo ball soup, hit up a dive bar for some live music and cap off
the evening with coffee and rugelach.

An unmistakable sense of place: One of L.A.’s most
distinctive neighborhoods, Fairfax is home to the city’s only silent-movie
theater and the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust in Pan Pacific Park.

Neighborhood
challenges

Bumper to bumper: Fairfax may have been built with the car
in mind, but not at the scale of the traffic volume that crushes through the
intersection of 3rd and Fairfax every day. Throw in holiday traffic from the
Grove, and it’s probably better to walk.

Expert insight

Merrie Kung, a real estate agent at Keller Williams, is
representing a home for sale in the Fairfax neighborhood. She said one
distinctive feature of the area is the large number of “McMansions” that have
been erected in recent years, drawing ire from longtime residents.

“You either get a fixer-type property for a million and a
half to just under two, or you get one of these new constructions,” she said.
“There’s not a whole lot of properties in the middle ground.”

For those that like existing properties, Fairfax offers “an
array of architecture that is beautifully preserved,” she said.

“There’s a lot of beautiful, historic, old Spanish buildings
in income properties, condos, single-family homes,” she said.

Market snapshot

In the 90036 ZIP Code, based on nine sales, the median price
for single-family homes in August was $1.576 million, according to CoreLogic.
That was a 5.4% increase in price year over year.

Report card

Within the boundaries of Fairfax is Melrose Avenue
Elementary, which scored 883 out of 1,000 in the 2013 Academic Performance
Index. Fairfax Senior High had a score of 761, and Whitman Continuation scored
623.

Nearby public schools include Hubert Howe Bancroft Middle,
which scored 764. Hancock Park Elementary scored 919, and Laurel Elementary had
a score of 755.