Pacific Palisades is a district within the city of Los Angeles, California located between Brentwood to the east, Malibu to the west, Santa Monica to the southeast, the Santa Monica Bay to the southwest, and the Santa Monica Mountains to the north. The area currently has about 27,000 residents. Originally the home of the Inceville movie studio, the first of the many "movie ranches" used for making western films and housing a small number of mostly Latino fishermen, the area was first subdivided in the 1920s and settled by Presbyterians One subdivision has streets named for Presbyterian missionaries. For many decades it had a virtual ban on local drinking, a Chinese restaurant famously holding the only liquor license in town. The Presbyterian Church still owns a conference center in Temescal Canyon.
Will Rogers owned a large ranch adjoining the Palisades in Santa Monica Canyon, and helped to attract movie stars to the area. Two California governors, Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, each lived in the district for many years at different times. It has many lavish mansions, well-patrolled by ubiquitous private security forces, as well as humbler homes. Because of its distance from inner-city areas, it is generally regarded as one of the safest and most pleasant areas of the city, albeit a virtual ghost town
after dark.
It is mentioned in The Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA". Band members Mike Love and Dennis Wilson were Pacific Palisades residents, but did not live there at the time they recorded the song. It is also mentioned in the Bran Van 3000 song called Drinkin in L.A. Patti Davis often describes growing up in the Palisades in her memoirs, including The Long Goodbye.
