The Alphabet Streets Homes for Sale

About the Neighborhood

Where the Palisades Began

Pacific Palisades began here. In 1921 and 1922 the Pacific Palisades Association, sponsored by the Methodist Episcopal Church and led by Rev. Charles H. Scott, laid out its first tract north of what became Sunset Boulevard, with streets running in alphabetical order and named for church figures — Albright, Bashford, Carey, Embury, Fiske, Galloway, Hartzell, Iliff, Kagawa. Kagawa Street honors the Japanese Christian leader Toyohiko Kagawa, who visited the community in 1931. Early buyers were often clergy, widows and families of modest means, and about one hundred homes stood by the mid-1920s, most of them small cottages and bungalows.

Lots here mostly run 5,200 to 7,200 square feet on a compact, walkable grid, and before January 2025 the neighborhood held roughly 880 residences. For decades the original bungalows had been giving way to substantially larger new homes, so the pre-fire streetscape already mixed 1920s cottages, midcentury remodels and recent two-story construction. Location drives the demand: the Swarthmore business district and the Palisades Village retail center sit at the grid's edge, and shops, the park and the library site are reachable on foot — an unusual degree of walkability for this part of the Westside, and central to how residents describe the place.

The fire's toll here was severe. Officials described almost every structure north of Sunset Boulevard as having burned, and the Alphabet Streets sat squarely in that zone; the branch library was destroyed and the village's commercial buildings were heavily affected, though the Palisades Village center survived and has announced a 2026 reopening. Recovery is correspondingly concentrated here — in one recent monthly tally the Alphabet Streets accounted for roughly a third of all Palisades rebuild permits, more than any other neighborhood — and framing crews, poured foundations and newly finished homes now define block after block of the grid.

Rebuilding on the grid is governed by comparatively simple rules. Like-for-like rebuilds up to about ten percent larger qualify for streamlined review under post-fire executive orders, the flat lots avoid hillside-ordinance complications, and there is no homeowners association. Every parcel sits in the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, so new construction must meet current ignition-resistant standards — Class A roofs, ember-resistant venting and related details. Because the tract is a century old, lot lines and old easements are worth a fresh survey, and utility restoration timelines, including water-meter and power-meter installation, have varied street by street since the fire.

Buying here in the current market usually means one of three things: a certified-cleared lot, a lot with a permitted plan set attached, or a newly completed house. Each carries its own diligence — confirm debris-removal certification and any soil-test results, whether permits and plans legally transfer, and the track record of the builder on finished homes. Ask about school interim campuses and rebuild schedules, since the zoned elementary was largely destroyed and is being rebuilt through 2028. And treat insurance as a first-week task, not a closing-week one: quotes, FAIR Plan eligibility and companion policies vary widely by carrier and parcel.