La Peer Drive was born with the more prosaic moniker of Lapeer Street. This missing space is crucial in determining the origin of the name: almost definitely Lapeer, Michigan, a city and county east of Flint. (Other than a tiny village in upstate New York, there’s no other likely Lapeer.) The name is said to derive from a local pronunciation of la pierre, French for “the stone”, referring to a large rock in the Flint River. I assume some homesick Michigander christened Lapeer Street, which existed by 1908 between present-day Beverly Boulevard and Burton Way during the town of Sherman‘s heyday. (The land was owned by the Schwall/Swall family, who were German Californian.) By 1924, the street had been quietly upgraded to the fancier-sounding La Peer Drive; street signs in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills are consistent with this formatting while those in Los Angeles have both “La Peer” and “Lapeer”.
Find it on the map:
