The approximately 8500 residents of the City of Westlake Village have the good fortune to live in what is widely recognized as one of America’s finest master-planned communities. Developed around a beautiful 150 acre man-made lake, Westlake Village was developed from scratch to fulfill all the requirements for safe, environmentally friendly, and commercially strong family and community living. The opportunities for cultural, sporting, and recreational enjoyment are almost infinite in this family-oriented community where residents co-operate extensively to ensure that their City remains a truly wonderful place to live, work, and play.
Location
Westlake Village is situated on the west side of a man-made 150 acre lake between the Simi Hills and the Santa Monica Mountains. At an elevation of about 900 feet it is 9 miles from the Pacific Ocean and halfway between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.
Geography/Terrain
The country surrounding Westlake Village is gently rolling California hills, generally dry, but with extensive agriculture, including citrus and avocado orchards.
Distance to 3 closest major cities
Westlake Village is 38 miles from Los Angeles, around 20 miles from Oxnard and Ventura, and nine miles from Simi Valley.
Jobs
In recent years the Agoura Hills, Westlake Village, and Thousand Oaks area has benefited from an exodus of companies moving from Los Angeles, attracted by lower taxes and a talented labor force. Westlake Village is one of the most affluent areas in greater Los Angeles, with a median income per household of $94,571 in 2000. Almost two thirds of those employed in a 20 mile radius of Westlake Village are in management or professional careers or sales and administration. Major employers are in high-tech, computer, bio-medical, and pharmaceutical businesses, and there are also many light manufacturing and service industries. Dole Food Company, Inc., the world’s largest grower and supplier of fresh and packaged fruits, juices, vegetables and nuts, has located its world headquarters in Westlake Village.
Housing
Known as one of America’s finest suburbs, Westlake Village is a model planned community, with beautiful scenery, great weather, lakefront homes and excellent shopping making it a very desirable location. All kinds of homes are available, from apartments, mobile homes, townhomes and condominiums to prestigious multi-million dollar estates. Many homes are located with lake, golf course or greenbelt frontage. Average single family home prices for 2005 exceeded $1 million.
Parks/Sports/Recreation/Golf
Westlake Village has easy access to just about every sport imaginable. Adjacent to the town, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area provides trails for hikers, backpackers and campers, mountain bikers, picnickers, and horse-riders. Also offered is a wide variety of educational and cultural programs, including naturalist classes, Indian arts and handicrafts, art exhibits and concerts. The nearby Pacific coast offers many excellent state and county beaches and campgrounds. There are iconic surfing and swimming beaches such as Malibu, and secluded spots like McGrath Beach and Point Mugu, where birdwatchers can observe myriads of migratory waterfowl, waders, and songbirds heading south for the winter.
In Westlake Village there are numerous scenic sidewalks, green belts, and lanes for bikes, roller blades, jogging, and horse riding, as well as public and private tennis courts and swimming pools. The lake is stocked with bass, blue gill and catfish, and docking privileges, fishing licenses, boating and sailing are available to residents. Westlake Village also manages three city parks and a recreation program. Organized football, soccer, baseball, softball, basketball, swimming, boating, and track and field are all available for young people. Seniors are not forgotten either, with a very full calendar of activities available at the Goebel Senior Adult Center every day.
Golfers have the choice of 18 courses, 13 of them public, and several driving ranges within a few minutes’ drive. The Westlake Village Golf Course is an excellent public course with elevated greens, some tricky water hazards, and a hilly terrain, so uneven lies are common. Golfers especially enjoy the breathtaking views of the surrounding mountains. Nearby at Thousand Oaks, the picturesque Los Robles Greens Golf Course is also ringed by mountains and is known for the giant oak trees lining its fairways and guarding many of its undulating greens. It is also justly proud of its luxurious new $5 million clubhouse and banquet facility which features a full bar, a splendid restaurant and three ballrooms.
Special Attractions/Events
Located on several hundred acres of wilderness property near Thousand Oaks, the Chumash Interpretive Center uses educational programs and guided tours to provide the public with an awareness of the culture and history and current lives of the Chumash people. On guided walks through the park visitors learn of the importance to the Chumash of the meadows, forest, creeks and wildlife, and visit a cave containing ancient pictographs. Ancient and modern artifacts cast light on the spiritual and cultural world of the Chumash, and a reconstructed village adds to understanding of a vanished way of life.
For lovers of flowers, plants and gardens, two wonderful garden parks offer special satisfaction. The 33 acres of the Conejo Valley Botanic Garden, with their panoramic views of the Valley include a large area preserved as habitat for birds and small animals, while the developed area includes displays of water-conserving plants from California, the Mediterranean and Australia, and several specialty gardens. The privately operated “Gardens of the World” features delightful and meticulously tended examples of gardens from various countries and periods, including a Japanese garden, an English perennial and rose garden, and a garden that recalls the Italian Renaissance.
Westlake Village and the Conejo Valley’s most eagerly anticipated annual festival is the five-day “Conejo Valley Days”, which celebrates the Conejo Valley’s colorful past and includes a children’s parade, a grand parade, a chili cook-off, a grand marshal’s race, a “Whiskeroo” contest, a big-midway carnival, and main-stage entertainers. One of the festival’s biggest attractions is a two-day rodeo with cowboys from the professional rodeo circuit competing for points to qualify for the annual National Rodeo Finals.
Westlake Village’s easy access to the Los Angeles area means that internationally famous theme parks such as Magic Mountain, Universal Studios, Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Raging Waters can all be reached in an hour or so.
Interesting Facts/Historic Buildings and Places
Westlake Village’s fascinating history begins with the Chumash Indian people, who lived in the area for many centuries before the first Spanish settlers chose a campsite close to the present Westlake Village in 1770. Later, when the Spanish settlers came, the 113,000 acres of Rancho Simi included the site of the City. In 1850 this vast ranch was broken up and the Westlake Village site became part of two smaller cattle ranches, which changed hands several times during the later 19th and early 20th Centuries, and were owned for a time by the famous William Randolph Hurst. In 1943 the land was sold again and while part continued to be used for cattle grazing, the remainder became a location for the filming of movies and television programs, including Robin Hood, Laredo, Gunsmoke, Bonanza and Buck Rogers, to name just a few.
In 1963, the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company purchased the 12,000-acre ranch. Their dream was to create “a city in the country”. Over the succeeding years their team of planners and designers developed what has been recognized as one of the finest master-planned communities in the nation, and Westlake Village has gone on to become a highly sought-after place for retirees or growing families.
The story of Westlake Village and the wider Thousand Oaks area can be seen in the displays at the Albinger Archaeological Museum in Ventura City, where artifacts from excavations in the city date back 3500 years to the Chumash city of Mitz-kanakan (1600-100 B.C.) and include insights into the lives and culture of later pre-Columbian residents and then the Spanish missionaries and settlers and Chinese immigrants. Excavations are still in progress, so this is an opportunity for visitors to actually experience the uncovering of the area’s historical past.
- NUMBER1EXPERTS™ 
