West Hollywood’s Havenhurst Drive and the Valley’s Hayvenhurst Avenue both borrow the name of William Hamilton Hay (1864-1946). That’s because Hay co-owned the 1905 Crescent Heights tract and the 1916 Encino Acres tract, where the two streets originate, respectively. In fact Hay named both his WeHo mansion and his later Encino mansion “Hayvenhurst” – and both were located on their namesake streets. (That first house was later supplanted by Alla Nazimova’s legendary “Garden of Alla” apartments; WeHo’s Hayvenhurst Drive dropped its “y” in 1914.) William Hay was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and came to L.A. around the age of sixteen. He was likely the nephew of Andrew Hay, a Hollywood rancher with a dark side (see Formosa Avenue) who had owned the land where Crescent Heights was born. Andrew’s widow Lizzie, no slouch when it came to real estate, remained involved. William had his own issues: his first wife Mary accused him of drunken, abusive behavior and divorced him in 1910. She would raise their daughters Ruby and Elizabeth, although William remained close enough to the girls to honor them with Valley streets: Rubio and Libbit.
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