yle, which combines bustling commercialism and, particularly along San Vicente Boulevard, a retention of open, well groomed outdoor spaciousness.
The development of Brentwood's topographical integrity as a community since its initial major subdivision in 1897 can be observed with reference to the features that lie on the other side of its principal borders. The federal park area that bounds Brentwood on its east and that may be considered an important landmark of western Los Angeles is an excellent example of this. The vast landscaped space of Veterans Memorial Park offers a sharp contrast to the developed commercial and residential area of Brentwood and indeed acts as a buffer between Brentwood and the city of Los Angeles proper, which lies eastward beyond the park. This can be read as an aspect of community planning, inasmuch as the first developers of the Rancho ceded the 300 acres that comprise the park to the federal government.3 Accordingly, what might be termed the "body language" just beyond the far eastern edge of Brentwood demonstrates the urban attributes of exclusivity and affluence of the area. Consider the streets of downtown Los Angeles, which may be comfortably wide but which are also flanked by one skyscraper after another. Little enough famous California sunshine may be found downtown. But in the Brentwood of today, there are pockets of landscape that retain the look of the vast open fields that in earlier decades surrounded residential clusters, all of which can be found in photographs taken in the years prior to active development of the community.
At the northern edge of Brentwood, which is described as the "southern rim of Santa Monica Canyon,"4 there is the most pronounced hard edge of Brentwood's boundaries. This hard edge derives from the fact that the Santa Monica Mountains begin to rise dramatically at Sunset Boulevard; consequently, there is a sharp demarcation of human activity between the n...