Westwood

Book excerpt: Don Maximo Alanes was awarded a land grant from the king of Spain in 1843 known as El Rancho San Jose de Buenos Aires, stretching east-west from what is now Sawtelle Boulevard to Beverly Hills, and from Sunset to Pico Boulevards. Preserved into the 20th century under state senator John Wolfskill's ownership, the rancho was sold to Broadway Department Store founder Arthur Letts for $100 an acre in 1920 for estates he called Holmby Hills after his British birthplace. His son-in-law Harold Janss developed Westwood Hills in the southern tracts. Letts, a former trustee of the Los Angeles State Normal School, which became UCLA, agreed in 1925 to deed 375 acres of the hilly ranch land north of Wilshire Boulevard to the college. Janss developed a university town-style commercial village of 26 Spanish Revival buildings, some with towers and neon signs that remain icons of today's Westwood Village.