Blanco-Culver Crest, Culver City, CA

Blanco-Culver Crest joins two very different parts of Culver City, the flat blocks around Blanco Park and the Culver Crest hillside, where homes look out toward the ocean, Palos Verdes and downtown Los Angeles. Most people pass it on Sepulveda Boulevard without realizing there are winding hillside streets just above. Culver Crest homes went up mainly in the 1950s, built by developers Lewis Crank and R.J. Blanco on curving streets like Ranch Road. The flats below mix older single-family houses with rebuilds and a few small multi-unit buildings. Blanco Park on Sawtelle Boulevard shares its grounds with El Rincon Elementary, so public hours are limited during the school day. Holy Cross Cemetery's wide lawns border the neighborhood and give the hillside a green edge. Most walking here happens on the Crest itself, where the loops are short and the grades are real. Sorrento Italian Market on Sepulveda is the anchor. Over on Sawtelle, King's Kabob and Shavers Hawaiian Shave Ice share a short strip, and Island Monarch Coffee handles the morning coffee run on Jefferson Boulevard. Errands in Blanco-Culver Crest cluster at Jefferson and Sepulveda, where Pavilions, a Target and a Starbucks sit in the Studio Village Shopping Center. From the flats that's an easy walk, while the Crest is a short drive or a steep climb home. Sepulveda and Jefferson both carry heavy traffic, and the hillside streets are narrow and steep enough that parking and passing take some patience. On a clear evening the Crest looks out over the whole basin, and it's easy to forget a busy boulevard runs right below.