Named in 1924 for Fred Warren Forrester (1878-1941), who laid out the Monte-Mar Vista tract that year with W.R. McConnell. Forrester was a lad from Scranton, PA who came to Los Angeles with his family in 1885. Here his father Edward got big into real estate, particularly in the Westlake neighborhood, and even served on the County Board of Supervisors. Forrester and his brother Arthur joined Dad in the E.A. Forrester & Sons realty firm in 1902. The following year, Forrester married his first wife Ione, who lived in Atlanta. The family business was a successful one, highlighted by the 1908 Forrester Building (which still stands at 640 S. Broadway) and the 1910 Angeles Mesa subdivision north of present-day Slauson and Crenshaw. Then came a bleak period: Forrester’s parents both died in 1917, followed by Ione and Arthur in 1919. He then went into business for himself. In 1926, Forrester and his second wife Gwendolyn, whom he had wed in her native Kansas City (one wonders how he met these faraway women), moved into their own mansion on Monte Mar Terrace. They would later live on Monte Mar Drive.
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