Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles (Revised September 2020)

by Charles Fleming

Overview

Revised and Updated in September 2020!


Containing walks and detailed maps from throughout the city, Secret Stairs highlights the charms and quirks of a unique feature of the Los Angeles landscape, and chronicles the geographical, architectural, and historical aspects of the city’s staircases, as well as of the neighborhoods in which the steps are located.

From strolling through the classic La Loma neighborhood in Pasadena to walking the Sunset Junction Loop in Silver Lake, to taking the Beachwood Canyon hike through “Hollywoodland” to enjoying the magnificent ocean views from the Castellammare district in Pacific Palisades, Secret Stairs takes you on a tour of the staircases all across the City of Angels.

The circular walks, rated for duration and difficulty, deliver tales of historic homes and their fascinating inhabitants, bits of unusual local trivia, and stories of the neighborhoods surrounding the stairs. That’s where William Faulkner was living when he wrote the screenplay for To Have and Have Not; that house was designed by Neutra; over there is a Schindler; that’s where Woody Guthrie lived, where Anais Nin died, and where Thelma Todd was murdered . . .

Despite the fact that one of these staircases starred in an Oscar-winning short film—Laurel and Hardy’s The Music Box, from 1932—these civic treasures have been virtually unknown to most of the city’s residents and visitors. Now, Secret Stairs puts these hidden stairways back on the map, while introducing urban hikers to exciting new “trails” all around the city of Los Angeles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595800503
Publisher:	Santa Monica Press
Publication date:	04/01/2010
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	190,837
Product dimensions:	6.42(w) x 9.04(h) x 0.49(d)

About the Author

Charles Fleming is the author of the national bestseller High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess, and co-author of the New York Times bestsellers Three Weeks in October: The Manhunt for the Serial Sniper, A Goomba's Guide to Life, and My Lobotomy. A former staff writer for Newsweek, Variety, and the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, and a frequent contributor to Vanity Fair, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles magazine, and LA Weekly, Fleming teaches journalism at USC. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Silver Lake, California.

Table of Contents

Introduction 6

Part 1 Pasadena and The East

Walk #1 Pasadena-La Loma Road 13

Walk #2 Eagle Rock 17

Walk #3 Glassell Park North-York and Beyond 21

Walk #4 Glassell Park South-Taylor Yard 25

Walk #5 Mt. Washington 29

Walk #6 Hermon and Highland Park 35

Walk #7 Highland Park-Southwest Museum 39

Walk #8 Highland Park-Highlands 45

Walk #9 El Sereno Circles 51

Walk #10 Happy Valley and Montecito Heights 55

Walk #11 Downtown Los Angeles 61

Part 2 Echo Park

Walk #12 Echo Park Lake Victorians 71

Walk #13 Laveta Terrace 77

Walk #14 Magic Gas 81

Walk #15 Avalon-Baxter Loop 85

Walk #16 Allesandro Loop 91

Walk #17 Fellowship Park 97

Part 3 Silver Lake

Walk #18 Music Box Loop 105

Walk #19 Silver Lake Circles 111

Walk #20 Sunset Junction Loop 115

Walk #21 Silver Lake Terraces West 121

Walk #22 Coffee Table Loop 125

Walk #23 Astro Loop 131

Walk #24 Silver Lake Terraces East 137

Walk #25 Swan's Way 141

Walk #26 Cove-Loma Vista Loop 145

Walk #27 Silver Lake Court 151

Walk #28 Los Angeles River Loop 157

Part 4 Hollywood and Los Feliz

Walk #29 Los Feliz-Griffith Park Loop 165

Walk #30 Franklin Hills East-Lyric Loop 171

Walk #31 Franklin Hills West-Radio-Prospect Loop 175

Walk #32 Fern Dell and Immaculate Heart 181

Walk #33 Bronson Canyon Loop 185

Walk #34 Beachwood Canyon 189

Walk #35 Temple Hill 193

Walk #36 Whitley Heights 199

Walk #37 Hollywood Bowl and High Tower Loop 203

Walk #38 Universal City-Happy Trails 207

Part 5 Santa Monica and The West

Walk #39 Santa Monica-Bluffs and Beach Walk 213

Walk #40 Santa Monica-Rustic Canyon Loop 219

Walk #41 Pacific Palisades-Castellammare 225

Walk #42 Pacific Palisades-Giant Steps 231

Afterword 236

Acknowledgements 238

Editorial Reviews

There’s something magical about the stair walks. You leave the known city behind and visit a quiet place built for an entirely different kind of living. Bungalows, some of them 100 years old, sit amid towering oaks and wildflowers, no roads or cars in sight. Fleming can point out the house where Anais Nin died, the house where William Faulkner wrote To Have and Have Not, the cabin-hotel where Ernest Hemingway once hung his hat, the place where Tom Mix’s saloon used to be and where his horse might be buried (in the vicinity of a Ralphs supermarket). Walking the stairs is like time travel, and you can picture schoolchildren, homemakers and bricklayers huffing up and down the flights on their way to school, to market and to work.”—Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times

“Soon, I started noticing friends posting from their stair walks on Instagram. We got a second copy of the book for Christmas. The friend I was going to regift it to already had one. On a walk near the Silver Lake Reservoir one recent weekend, I spotted an older man with a dog-eared copy of the book and a younger couple with a fresh volume. It seemed that the “secret” stairways in Los Angeles, and in the East Bay, as detailed in the sequel, were, well, not so secret.”—New York Times

“Charles Fleming, author of Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles (Santa Monica Press), is helping Angelenos discover their communities' historic and architectural treasures.”—Wall Street Journal

“The self-guided, roughly one-hour “Secret Stairs” walks, largely around Echo Park, Silver Lake and the Hollywood Hills, were just the tonic I needed: a change of scene, outdoor exercise, a challenge, a goal.”—Los Angeles Daily News

“Each walk feels like a scavenger hunt, eliciting a sense of discovery as you learn when the stairs were constructed (many are 1920s era), admire the architectural landmarks (from modern and Moorish to Neutra and Craftsman), and uncover other neighborhood curiosities (vintage cars, murals, and more).”—Pasadena Magazine

From the Publisher