The former Alysmae Avenue was renamed Longridge Avenue in 1937 on the Longridge Estates tract, carved out of a 340-ish acre ranch that had belonged to banker Willis Douglas Longyear (1863-1941); the “Long” stems from his surname. A Michigan boy, Longyear embarked upon his lucrative career in Kalamazoo. He came to Los Angeles in 1889 and soon joined Security Savings Bank as a bookkeeper. He ascended to its vice presidency in 1917. As an investor in the company that purchased half the San Fernando Valley from Isaac Van Nuys in 1909, Longyear was entitled to a chunk of Valley land: the area south of Longridge Ave. and Ventura Blvd. (“Longridge Canyon” was named by 1923.) Longyear and his wife Ida preferred the other side of the hill, however, and dwelled in a Wilshire Boulevard mansion until 1925, when they moved to Beverly Drive. In fact in Beverly Gardens Park there still stands a pockmarked statue of a hunter and hounds that Longyear had imported from the site of a World War I battle in France. Despite some historians’ claims, it’s not true that Longyear’s son Douglas died in that battle. Nor for that matter did his daughter Gwendolyn.
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