What a Landmark Vote Can Save at the Canyon Country Store

The front of 2108 Laurel Canyon Boulevard is a short list of things you can photograph. There's a hand-painted "Laurel Canyon" sign set just below the parapet and two striped bands running across the facade. A clock sits between them, and below them hangs the Canyon Country Store sign. The brick is common bond on three sides and smooth on the south face toward Kirkwood Drive, and the building sits on the northeast corner of that intersection.

Every one of those features now sits inside a formal city process. On October 15, Los Angeles' Cultural Heritage Commission took the building under consideration as a Historic-Cultural Monument. The Los Angeles Conservancy filed the nomination and called the vote "one step closer to landmark status." That's real progress for a building that has anchored the canyon since 1924. The city's own documents also make clear that this process protects a structure. The question that drove neighbors to push for it is about the market inside, and the process can't answer that one.

Why the Nomination Happened This Year

The Conservancy has said what set this off. When community members raised concerns about the store's "ownership transition and future," it partnered with local advocates to nominate the property.

Those concerns go back to winter. In February, SFGate reported that a public notice of an application to change ownership of the market's alcohol license was posted beside the juice and coffee bar outside. The same article quoted a longtime co-owner who said he had not known about the notice and was looking for legal representation. SFGate described him as a shareholder in the business who does not own the land. City Planning's staff report lists the property owner as Canyon Country Corp.

By September, Michael Walker, author of Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Legendary Neighborhood, wrote in his newsletter Letter from Laurel Canyon about "a recent change in management that has townies on edge." He also noted that the store "remains deeply idiosyncratic."

The landmark application concerns a 1924 building. The worry that produced it concerns a business that has operated in one of that building's storefronts since 1956.

What the Commission Actually Has Its Hands On

The case is CHC-2026-4816-HCM, and it covers 2100 to 2108 North Laurel Canyon Boulevard. That's the whole building, including the lower level where Pace serves Italian food at 2100.

The building's history goes back further than the store's. The staff report says the site was once the wooden Laurel Tavern, which burned in 1923, the year Los Angeles annexed Laurel Canyon. The brick building went up a year later as one of the area's earliest commercial structures. From 1925 to 1929, its first tenants were real estate offices selling lots in the surrounding hills. Over the years it held a grocery, a drugstore and a dry cleaner. For more than 30 years starting in 1937, it was also home to the neighborhood paper The Canyon Crier. Walker's account gives a different origin story, with the store opening in 1919 and a fire in 1929. The city and the Conservancy both use 1924.

The cultural claim in the nomination is that the store became the canyon's informal town square during the folk and rock years. The Conservancy points to two pieces of evidence. Jackie DeShannon appears in front of the store on the cover of her 1968 album Laurel Canyon, and Jim Morrison wrote the Doors' "Love Street" after watching the scene there from his house nearby. Walker adds a story Mick Fleetwood told Mojo. In 1974, a chance conversation in the store sent Fleetwood to Sound City studios, where he first heard Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. According to Walker, the psychedelic exterior art was painted in 1968 by Spike Stewart, and when Stewart touched it up in 1994, a T-shirt fundraiser for animal welfare grew into the annual Photo Day on the porch.

The commission can recognize all of that history. What it regulates is brick, facade and fabric.

The Calendar From Here

The city's Office of Historic Resources publishes the process in an info brief on historic designation. Here's how it applies to this case:

1. Taken under consideration, October 15. Once the commission votes to formally consider a nomination, it has 75 days to act. Counting from October 15, that window closes around December 29.
2. Site visit. A two-member subcommittee of the commission tours and inspects the property, typically within 30 days of the first hearing. That puts it around mid-November. No date has been announced.
3. Final staff report and hearing on the merits. Staff evaluates the building against the Cultural Heritage Ordinance's criteria. The commission then votes on whether to recommend designation, before the 75 days run out.
4. City Council. If the commission recommends designation, the Council has 90 days to act, and a Council motion can add 15 more. The five-member Planning and Land Use Management Committee hears the case first. Then the full Council votes.

The October 15 agenda lists the commission's next regular meeting as Thursday, November 5, at 10 a.m. If the commission declines the nomination at any point, the process ends there.

What Is Protected Right Now, and What Never Will Be

Some protection is already in place. Under the city's HCM process FAQ, a temporary stay on all permits for demolition or significant alterations took effect when the application was deemed complete. Even a demolition permit issued earlier can't be used while the commission and Council are considering the case. The owner doesn't have to support the nomination for any of this to apply.

If the store becomes a monument, the same FAQ spells out what changes and what doesn't:

Every protection in that table applies to the physical property. The FAQ says nothing about who holds a lease, who owns the business, who holds the alcohol license, or whether an espresso bar keeps pouring on the deck. Landmark status could keep the hand-painted sign, the clock and the brick in place. It can't decide which market operates behind them.

That limit still matters for the canyon. Keeping the building is how the market's setting survives. The city report lists the lot's zoning as R1-1-HCR and its land-use designation as Low II Residential, so a 1924 commercial building has real value as a neighborhood gathering place. The Conservancy tags the building as a "Legacy Business" site and says designation would protect "the important role that everyday neighborhood places play in shaping local identity." The landmark process can secure that setting. Whether the store itself keeps going depends on the business and on who shops there. In the February SFGate piece, the co-owner said in a video that the store "has been hurting a lot" and asked neighbors to come support it.

These are the city's rules as its own documents describe them. This post is general information, not legal or tax advice. If you own a property that could be affected by something similar, confirm your situation with the right professional.

Following It From the Canyon

The case sits in Council District 4 and inside the Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council's area. That neighborhood council holds its next regular board meeting on November 18 at 6 p.m. The Cultural Heritage Commission accepts public comment by email at [email protected]. Before the first hearing, the Conservancy pointed supporters to that address. The things to watch next are the subcommittee's site visit, the final staff report, and a merits hearing on a commission agenda before late December.

Serving on West Hollywood's Historic Preservation Commission has taught me how often the outcome depends on the gap between what a landmark protects and what a community hopes it will protect. If you have questions about how a designation like this affects a property you own or are considering on the hillside, Yawar Charlie is glad to walk you through it. Contact Us.