Hadley Meares
Hadley Meares is a writer, historian, and singer who traded one Southland (her home state of North Carolina) for another. She is a frequent contributor to Curbed and Atlas Obscura, and leads historical tours all around Los Angeles for Obscura Society LA. Her debut novel, "Absolutely," is now available on Amazon.
This tight-knit family's story reads like a California soap opera -- chock full of intrigue and triumph, tragedy and mystery.
Her thoughts during eighteen years of abandonment and isolation are lost to time, as is her real name.
"From birth to death, a reverence and connection with the natural world -- particularly the sea -- tied the many distinct tribes of the Chumash together."
It looked like every other part of the sprawling Elysian Park, but when I finally looked past the people and up to the trees, I began to appreciate the wide variety of specimens before me.
Many Angelenos are unaware of the recreation area's existence, but almost all of us have enjoyed it.
The building itself appears tired and worn out, and its history has been as jammed packed and traumatic as any melodrama made by the city that it calls home.
The Peninsula's rich geographic beauty and abundant resources have caused it to be rediscovered, time and time again, over the centuries by colonists from all over the world.
On a flat circular board in front of me, the goings on of Ocean Avenue played out like a scene from a fuzzy home video shot in the 1980s.
It is hard to believe that a little over a century ago this Mayberry of vacation homes and sunshine was just a mosquito infested mudflat, which one Newport Mayor unceremoniously referred to as a "dump."
The history of Crystal Cove is as fanciful and seemingly unreal as the place itself.
The history of Yamashiro, a fanciful mish-mash of Japanese, Chinese, and other Asian architectural elements built by two German Jewish brothers, is as odd as its atmosphere.
The town of San Diego was growing impatient with delays, knowing that without a quality lighthouse, their commercial potential could not be met.