Sunset Park
Sunset Park is the southeast corner of Santa Monica — a quiet, tree-lined single-family neighborhood of small-scale bungalows and Craftsman cottages, roughly a mile and a half from the beach. It is the part of Santa Monica where people actually raise families, and it has one of the most unexpectedly remarkable histories of any neighborhood on the Westside.
History
Sunset Park exists because of an airfield. In 1917 the land here became Clover Field, named for Greayer Clover, a young Santa Monica man who left Yale to fly in the First World War and was killed in France at twenty-one. Cloverfield Boulevard carries his name today. On March 17, 1924, four open-cockpit biplanes took off from that runway on the first successful flight around the world; one hundred and seventy-five days and 28,945 miles later, two of them came home. The aircraft were Douglas World Cruisers, built a few hundred yards away, and that flight made Douglas Aircraft's name.
Douglas is why this neighborhood looks the way it does. During the Second World War the company employed tens of thousands of people here, and the modest bungalows and cottages that fill these streets were built for the families who built the planes. The plant itself was concealed beneath an enormous camouflage netting painted to look like an ordinary suburb — fake houses, fake trees, fake streets — so convincing that pilots reportedly struggled to find the field beneath it.
Living in Sunset Park
Sunset Park is residential in a way much of Santa Monica no longer is: front porches, sidewalks, kids on bikes, and neighbors who know each other. Clover Park is the neighborhood's green center, with wide lawns and playgrounds beside the airfield. Ocean Park Boulevard carries the local coffee shops, markets, and restaurants, and the beach at Ocean Park is a short ride down the hill.
Real Estate Landscape
The housing here is predominantly single-family, and the character comes from the 1920s through 1940s bungalows and Craftsman cottages that make up the original fabric. Many have been thoughtfully expanded or rebuilt, so the neighborhood now runs from preserved period homes through substantial contemporary construction on the same blocks. Lots are modest and consistent, and the low-scale, walkable feel that results is the reason buyers choose Sunset Park over other parts of the city.
What's Coming
The Santa Monica Airport is scheduled to close permanently on December 31, 2028, and the 192 acres it occupies are planned to become public open space organized into eight districts — habitat and nature, sports fields, arts and culture, and an edge designed to blend into the surrounding streets. It represents the largest new park the Westside has seen in generations, arriving directly alongside this neighborhood. It is, without question, the most consequential thing happening in the 90405.
Education
Sunset Park is served by the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, including Grant Elementary, John Adams Middle School, and Santa Monica High School — a significant part of why families choose the neighborhood in the first place.
Sunset Park offers the increasingly rare combination of a genuine single-family neighborhood, an excellent school district, and a beach a mile away — with a future taking shape right next door.