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Well, I just got into town about an hour ago
Took a look around, see which way the wind blow
Where the little girls in their Hollywood bungalows?
Are you a lucky little lady in the city of light?
Or just another lost angel?
City of night
– The Doors
The Tongva natives were the original inhabitants of Laurel Canyon, but these ancient settlers of California would all but vanish during the New World invasion. Blood would be spilled without end during war after war for the right to own California. The United States would finally win this battle in 1848, defeating Mexico in an unpopular and controversial battle. In 1850 the city of Los Angeles would be incorporated, and a sprawling new spin on the metropolis would begin to take root. The old landowners were rounded up and one out of ten either lost his land or was reduced to bankruptcy.
The more fortunate Spanish or Native rancheros were absorbed into other communities, depending on their wealth or color. Rick Seireemi writes on the The Laurel Canyon Association website:
A new wave of extermination was begun by American ranchers and miners intent on ridding California of the last of its native population. The US government actually reimbursed bounty hunters (mostly out of work Civil War veterans) for the scalps of murdered Native Americans. One band was hunted down and murdered in Franklin Canyon.During this time, the entire Los Angeles area fell into anarchy as unsuccessful gold hunters, fugitives, dispossed Native Americans, ex-soldiers, aspiring farmers, ranchers and speculators, and even German Jewish merchants flooded the area. A severe drought in 1865 put the last of the Spanish rancho owners out of business. Preying on this hapless population were bandits and outlaws who held out in mountain hide-a-ways.
Laurel Canyon’s first famous resident was the bandit Tiburcio Vasques, a romantic hero of Native and Mexican resistance. Vasques eluded authorities by hiding out within the vast canyon lands later dubbed the Hollywood Hills. According to Encyclopedia4U.comVasques and:
other Mexican residents resisted the new Anglo powers by resorting to social banditry against the Gringos. In 1856, Juan Flores threatened the southland with a full-scale Mexican revolt. He was hanged in Los Angeles in front of 3,000 spectators. Tiburcio Vasques, a legend in his own time among the Mexican population for his daring feats against the Anglos, was captured and hanged on La Cienega Boulevard…things eventually calmed down, and the original Spanish ranchos were subdivided in the 1880's; and, in 1886, the town of Hollywood was established by H.H. Wilcox. (His wife gave the town its name.) This began the irreversible shift from agriculture to residences to business.
Legend has it that H.H. (Harvey) and Ida moved from Topeka, Kansas in 1884, and strolled into Los Angeles on a baggage car carried by two of their finest thoroughbreds. In Los Angeles Harvey formed a real estate company with an associate and began buying up, planning and paving the streets, and selling welcoming lots to the influx of wealthy voyagers seeking the warm California sun. From H.H. Wilcox’s Wikipediapage we learn that:
Harvey and Ida had one child, a son named Harry, who died in 1886 at the age of 18 months. Family tradition says that to console themselves over the death of their baby, Harvey and Ida would take buggy rides to the beautiful canyons west of Los Angeles. Harvey purchased one of their favorite areas for $150 per acre, in an agricultural area of fig and apricot orchards. Harvey tried his hand at raising fruit, but failed and decided to subdivide the land, selling lots for $1,000 each.
His wife named the land “Hollywood” after her friends’ summer home in Ohio, and the name Hollywood first appears on the Wilcox's map of the subdivided lots, filed in Los Angeles on February 1, 1887. Another theory links the naming of Hollywood to the ancient ‘Toyon Holly’ found in ample strains decorating the hills of southern California. There is even a man who claims to be the father of Hollywood himself. H.J. Whitley is said to have coined the phrase while on a honeymoon with his wife. His wife Gigi’s memoirs supposedly verify this, but good luck finding a copy. One thing we do know is that H.J. did have a huge impact on the future of Hollywood; he basically owned all the land it was built upon. Whitley is a conspiracy lovers' wet dream; not only was he a successful real estate tycoon – He also owned his own banks!
Whitley was known to socialize with the richest and most powerful people in the world, from presidents to royals. With his monopolistic vision Hollywood quickly became a prosperous community. Prospect Avenue, which would later be called Hollywood Boulevard, was lined with large Queen Anne, Victorian, and Mission Revival houses. Hollywood quickly became a prosperous community, sporting a post office, a newspaper, a hotel and two markets by the turn of the century.
Hollywood incorporated in 1903 and celebrated with a parade and automobile race. Several thousand people gathered for the festivities, “Most of them leading citizens from this, and adjoining cities, who had come on personal invitation – 800 being taken out on special cars on the trolley line – gathered in the hot sun and listened for hours to speeches on good roads by “the wizard of Hollywood” H.J. Whitley…” and other various members of the early Hollywood elite. This quote from a newspaper published in 1903 is the first reference of an occult or magical term in the history of Hollywood. By referring Whitley as the ‘wizard’ of Hollywood we get our first clues to understanding the ongoing spell of Hollywood’s enchantment.
A history that has its roots not in corny mementos to a friends summer home or from lovers lips during a honeymoon, but in ancient sorcery and witchcraft. A practice that rich white men like H.J. Whitney and associates have loved dabbling in since the beginning of time. Prolific occult historian Jordan Maxwell teaches us the real meaning behind Hollywood’s origins in his book The Matrix of Power. He writes:
Merlin and the old magicians of Celtic England always used their magic wands, and these magic wands were always made out of holly-wood. And that's why today we still have Holly-wood, working its "magic" on us — showing us in movies how to view things, what we should think, or just offering us a big box office diversion.
Laurel Canyon provided the perfect backdrop for rich businessmen intent on leaving the smog filled, claustrophobic cities of the East. The warm sun and ocean breeze was enticing, but the lack of a fresh water supply was a major problem. The desert water riddle was solved by oil baron Edward L. Doheny (the source of Daniel Day Lewis’s inspiration for his performance in There Will Be Blood) and other land speculators including H.H. Wilcox and H.J. Whitley when they teamed up with William Mulholland, a virtuoso hydraulic engineer. From the 2008 Los Angeles Times article ‘Hiking into Hollywood’s Backyard’ Diane Wedner says:
Although oil was plentiful in early 20th century L.A., water was not. Responding to the demand for it, engineer William Mulholland and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began construction of the reservoirs in Franklin Canyon in 1914 to distribute water from the Owens Valley to the growing, thirsty region.
Their only rival in the water racket would be another key early figure who played a role in developing the canyon, and the greater Los Angeles area. The real estate tycoon Charles Spencer Mann was a blue blood belonging to one of the oldest families in America. Educated in Chicago he moved west with dreams of building on the unsettled lands of California. Despite the depression and the horrible realty market of the time, Mann found success working at Easton, Eldridge & Co. Assigned Managerial duties this working experience taught Mann all he needed to know about the emerging Los Angeles real estate market. He promptly left the firm in 1902, and established a company of his own. Realizing the importance of needing water in the harsh desert climate of southern California, Mann and a few other investors created the Hollywood Water Company.
This would fan the flame of inspired purchases around the hills of Hollywood. David McGowan writes:
Mann and his partners began buying up land along what would become Laurel Canyon Boulevard, as well as up Lookout Mountain. A narrow road leading up to the crest of Lookout Mountain was carved out, and upon that crest was constructed a lavish 70-room inn with sweeping views of the city below and the Pacific Ocean beyond. The Lookout Inn featured a large ballroom, riding stables, tennis courts and a golf course, among other amenities. By 1913, Mann began operating what was billed as the nation’s first trackless trolley, to ferry tourists and prospective buyers from Sunset Boulevard up to what would become the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Lookout Mountain Avenue.
Mann hired local architect Robert Byrd to build Laurel Tavern. Byrd was one of the founding fathers of architecture in Los Angeles. Curiously the homes he developed within and around Laurel Canyon have contained gruesome murders and suicides, with the most famous being the Sharon Tate house on Cielo drive. Byrd’s vision for the Laurel Tavern was extravagant and even included a bowling alley in the basement. Mann eventually sold the property to the famous movie cowboy Tom Mix, who rechristened it simply as the Log Cabin. A name that stuck thanks to Frank Zappa and the future generations who gathered there. Author Michael Walker writes in Laurel Canyon:
Beneath Bungalow Land’s (one of the early names of the development) twisting lanes, a log-cabin-style roadhouse was built in 1916 at 2401 Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Among the amenities was a bowling alley in the basement. The tavern later became a private retreat with an unnervingly long, narrow living room dominated by a granite hearth of feudal proportions. Tom Mix, the former rodeo rider turned matinee idol then on his way to earning $17,000 per week prior to the federal income tax, lived there briefly before moving to a seven-acre Beverly Hills compound with front gates emblazoned “T-M” in flowing neon. Mix’s journey from Laurel Canyon log cabin (his “wonder horse,” Tony, was supposedly buried beneath the bowling alley) to Beverly Hills pleasure dome would uncannily foreshadow the diaspora of a later generation of Laurel Canyon pop culturalists struck by sudden, thunderous wealth.
The log cabin inspired the building of a large mansion across the street. This sprawling gothic estate on willow glenn road came equipped with towers resembling castles in medieval Europe and hosted an underground labyrinth full of hidden chambers and secret passageways. Underground tunnels both man-made and natural can be found all throughout the Laurel Canyon landscape. One of the best movies filmed in Laurel Canyon, Wavelength, drops hints about where to look when confronted with the Canyon conspiracy.
Released in 1983 this forgotten gem has gained a new life thanks in part to the recent interest in the 1970’s teenage girl rock supergroup ‘The Runaways’ with key roles played brilliantly by Twilight actress Kristen Stewart and the heir to Meryl Streep’s throne, Miss Dakota Fanning. Fanning plays the role of ‘Runaways’ singer Cherie Currie. Cherie, herself an early victim of mind control and drug abuse in Hollywood was burnt out by the time she was 19. After taking time off music to address her drug problem, she pulled herself together long enough to follow in her mothers footsteps. Branching out as an actress, Currie, a true Californian beauty could have been a major star if she could ever kick her drug habit. She never did, but she left us a great, albeit spooky performance in Wavelength. In one of her rare leading roles she plays the psychic girlfriend of a loser musician. In a role that on the surface should have went to anyone other than Robert Carradine, our ‘down on his luck hero’ and his smoking hot girlfriend go poking around in the Laurel Canyon caverns in search of a profound mystery.
Carradine was great in Revenge of the Nerds but is way too nerdy for us to believe that he is actually a cool rock singer, or that he could have snatched up Currie after spewing a few lame lines at a bar. But in fairness to Carradine it’s worth noting that he did his own guitar playing and even wrote one of the film’s songs. Unfortunately on the soundtrack composed by Tangerine Dream, he was shown no love. The role wasn’t that much of a stretch for Robert, who grew up in Laurel Canyon playing music as a teenager with his older brother David. David Carradine would go on to international movie star status and even helped his younger brother Robert get roles. One of Robert’s first breaks was a small role in Martin Scorsese’s classic Mean Streets. David Carradine found some mean streets of his own, meeting a fate closely associated with luminaries from Laurel Canyon, a ritualistic death. Only this one took place in a sweltering Bangkok hotel room. David Carradine was found dead, hung in compromising sexual situations fit for instant Internet conspiracy blog fodder.
But decades before in Laurel Canyon, David taught his younger brother Robert the craft of acting and how to race sports cars throughout the vast serpentine stretches of the Hollywood hills. So for Robert Carradine a chance to basically play what he wished himself to be wasn’t too far removed from his once daily teenage existence in the Canyon. Back to the film…
after falling asleep to Carradine’s acoustic guitar solo, Currie awakes to the dog’s growling and some other unexplained noises. She gets out of bed and puts her robe on (The Director blows what could have been a great nude shot) and walks outside on the deck. When Carradine awakes they have a conversation about the noises she’s been hearing. Currie believes that she is receiving signals in her mind from somewhere. During a walk they discover an abandoned military base. She tries to convince her boyfriend Carradine that the base isn’t really abandoned and that something weird is going on there. What the film is actually doing is hipping us to the reality of the science and art of mind control, which is the ability to send signals and manipulate an individuals thinking and reactions.
Throughout the film, Wavelength discloses that the advancements made in this secret science program were being conducted from a military base deep in Laurel Canyon. Could this be true? In later chapters we’ll discuss at length the Military operation MK-ULTRA and the art of mind control in connection with Laurel Canyon’s secret military base. But getting back to the movie, which really gets interesting after Currie and Carradine climb down a hillside during sunset on their way to meet a bummy old prospector.
The ornery old timer is ticked they brought him whiskey instead of water and when asked if he’s seen anything unusual, sarcastically he replies while pointing, “well there is Beverly hills, there are the Hollywood hills, and right down at the bottom of this hill…is Sunset Boulevard. Have I seen anything unusual?” with a coy smirk he gets the point across. A little while later while chatting with the curious couple beside a campground fire, he discloses some actual facts about Laurel Canyon. When asked about the secret military base he explains pretty accurately the birth of Lookout Mountain (which we’ll discuss at length in a future chapter) even though it’s told from the point of view of an obvious fictional character. What he says is interesting and mostly correct, especially on the subject of the vast underground tunnel systems that have been reported to exist in the Laurel Canyon topography.
After Carradine asks, “how long has that military installation been around?” the old man answers, “1942, after Pearl Harbor. That was the headquarters of Western defense.” Currie joins in the on the conversation by asking, “why did they put it up there? I mean up on the Canyon.” The old man explains, “in 1942 we didn’t know how to kill ourselves with atomic radiation. If you wanted to drop a bomb on that building, you had to have a heading to the south. It had to land right in the middle of the building to do any damage at all. The walls are five to six feet thick and go underground five or six stories…nobody knows it’s there and nobody bothered to look. Could you imagine looking for a military base in the middle of the Hollywood hills?” a lot of hidden truth in a movie from 1983 that no one has seen. When Carridine asks, “How come you know so much about this place?” the prospector replies, “I helped build it…we dug out the whole inside of that mountain. We had tunnels going that way and the other way.” Eventually Currie and Carradine go into the tunnels and confront more conspiracy theories suitable for a different book. You can watch the full movie on youtube link below!
The point is that the Canyon is littered with tunnels and caverns man made and natural, an added real estate bonus discovered when the elite began buying up homes all over the Hollywood hills. With the creation of exclusive communities such as “Bungalow Land” and “Wonderland Park” as ideal alternatives to the crowded lots of the East, rich men came in droves to settle the vast Canyon lands. As it became evident to what type of crowd was wanted in Laurel Canyon (The Whiter the better), more massive exotic homes were being built and sold. With these homes came the horror. Since its inception Laurel Canyon has been a hotbed for murders and the macabre. Despite being an overly rich neighborhood the onslaught of destruction and deprived behavior has reeked from the beginning of madness. Examples can be found at certain Canyon area homes like the Bavarian looking house on 9820 Easton Drive.
A true haunted house, it has seen its fair share of death, starting with the slaying of director/producer Paul Bern. Bern had lucked out by marrying the hot young superstar actress of the day, Jean Harlow, a few months earlier. He had a huge mansion, loads of money, and the hottest chick on the planet to wake up to in the morning. But his luck was about to run out. On September 5th, 1932 Bern’s butler found his outstretched, bloody dead body in the master bedroom. The studio heads of MGM were called in to investigate the scene before the police, press or even Jean Harlow was aware of the situation. Apparently Harlow had stayed at her mother's the night before. The book Hollywood Cauldron describes the early morning scene Harlow missed and those involved with MGM witnessed:
Beholding the naked body of a 42-year-old Bern, sprawled in the bedroom, drenched in Harlow’s Mitsouko perfume with this infamous note nearby: Dearest/Dear – unfortunately this is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done you and to wipe out my abject humiliation/I love you – Paul – You realize that last night was only a comedy. Legend would claim that Bern’s blew his brains out, humiliated over his impotence, and his alluded “comedy” was a pathetic attempt to make love to MGM’s platinum blonde while sporting a dildo. The studio bosses more than likely wrote the note and created the whole story in order to save Harlow’s reputation. It worked. Years later a real culprit emerged as the prime suspect who put a bullet in Bern’s head. A crazy ex-lover that flipped her wig when she found out that her man was now married to a famous sex kitten. Bern was actually murdered by Dorothy Millette, his common-law wife, who, after years in a Connecticut sanatorium and a San Francisco hotel, had now come to Hollywood. Millette was raving religious lunatic who vengefully confronted Bern with his bigamy and manically demanded that he star her in a religious epic while Jean was away, Dorothy was at the house that night, shrieking on the Japanese lantern-lit patio, gobbling devil’s food cake that had been saved for Jean, taking a dip in the pool with Paul, shooting him in the head in the bedroom, unleashing an “unearthly” scream heard by the housekeeper, and escaping in the limousine Bern had called MGM for at 1:04 a.m. that night to drive a woman to San Francisco. Two nights later Dorothy Millitte jumped off the Delta King steamboat and drowned in the Sacramento River.
The infamous murder would leave a paranormal effect on the house for generations after and Bern’s tormented soul would forever haunt the secluded mansion. Thirty years after his untimely death his apparition began showing up to two other unfortunate souls who would go on to share the same fate at a home just a few miles away. Sharon Tate was a famous up and coming actress who just married the director Roman Polanski, and Jay Sebring was the hippest hairstylist in Los Angeles, best known for giving Jim Morrison (the Lizard King will have his very own chapter) his famous ‘lion’ haircut. But before they met a gruesome ending together Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring were lovers and housemates sharing the home on 9820 Easton Drive. From the Complete Idiots guide to Ghosts and Hauntings:
Hairstylist Jay Sebring purchased Paul Bern’s home in 1966. Sebring was dating Sharon Tate at that time, and he asked her to housesit for him one night when he was out of town. Tate awoke to see the ghost of Bern, running around the bedroom and crashing into furniture. Tate fled downstairs and was horrified to see an apparition of Sebring tied to the post of the staircase, bleeding with his throat slashed. Banging sounds continued from the bedroom upstairs. Eventually the visions faded, and the noise ended, and Tate, exhausted finally fell asleep…within two years, Sebring, Tate, and three others were bound and murdered by Charles Manson and his followers in a house located just down the Canyon from the Bern-Harlow home.
Violence and death would spread as the decades rolled by. You could fill a whole book with all the strange murders and suicides that has taken place in the Canyon lands, especially on special satanic dates such as Halloween. Not to mention the secrets, sorcerers, and double agent spies (Harry Houdini was one) working anonymously in the Hollywood night. This is just the flesh mangling tip of the iceberg when it comes to the beginning of the
strange interweaving of occult numerology and covert military connections secretly surrounding Los Angeles.