Here's another one of much interest for us LA area purists, which could have been at one time the beginning to our answer for Bethpage Park, only it was privately owned and operated.
Sunset Hills was laid out by Billy Bell consisting of two 18 hole course with plans for an 18-hole executive and 9-hole beginner course. Situated in Leimert Park, just due east of where the Olympic Village was located for the 1932 Olympics, the area was probably famous for something a bit more bizarre in LA history. Less then two blocks away from the club's driving range, on the morning of January 15th, 1947 a woman was walking her daughter to a nearby shoe store had came across the horrifying bisected human remains. This discovery would be come to known as LA's most popular unsolved crime,
The Black Dahlia Murder, and it represented the classic tale of young girl leaves home to stirke it big in Hollywood only to find complete failure and ultimate demise.
I'll apologize here for bringing this into play because it has little to do with golf architecture, much less abandoned golf courses, but in Los Angeles, much of the courses lost were due to not just the depression and world war, but also redevelopment. And for a LA person like myself, I'm a fanatic for it's history--just like all good Angelenos.
Both my parents were both raised not far from Leimert Park, almost in the shadow of L.A.'s Memorial Coliseum, and since childhood my family has been enthralled in the possibilites of "whodunnit." My 2nd uncle, Bernerd, was LAPD cop, and his best friend Bill Lester who was an LAPD detective, had been somewhat involved in the case.
I will never forget the tales my Uncle and Bill Lester would tell all of us on summer nights at my grandparents, the look on their faces describing what the remains looked like in the morgue where Beth Short's body lay in waiting, looking for further clues on who could have committed such a ghastly crime. (like all police officers in those days of Noir LA, they all were interested and the two of them had managed to get a viewing at the morgue.)
While the recent movie has renewed some interest in the case. (the movie was a complete and utter failure in my opinion. I was quite disappointed that a movie about the Black Dahlia wasn't about the Black Dahlia but more of a fictionalized account that was almost pornographic with characters that never even existed.
So in Leimert Park, us Angelenos have two things to mourn and still provoke interest about, The Black Dahlia and Sunset Hills. While one is a somewhat gruesome and tragic ending, the need for great, affordable golf in Los Angeles is still felt from the passing of Sunset Hills.
