Neighborhood Spotlight: Canoga Park rocketing on fewer engines

If there’s one part of the San Fernando Valley that most expressed the go-go spirit of Space Age America, it’s Canoga Park.

The neighborhood is where aerospace giant Rocketdyne designed the massive rockets that would take us to the moon and back, and where each sprawling new ranch home contained a nuclear family in which at least one parent was a bona fide pocket protector-sporting rocket scientist.

The national craze for all things aerospace extended even to the finned cars thronging Sherman Way, cruising through the warm Valley nights under a wall of neon signs. At a certain time in the last century, it must have seemed to the Tang-swilling citizens of Canoga Park that a Jetsons-like future was just around the corner.

Less than 50 years before the U.S. and USSR began lobbing men into space, Canoga Park had been a treeless, windswept corner of the Valley where sheep far outnumbered people.

That didn’t stop the Los Angeles Suburban Home Co. from marketing the area as a desirable locale to put down roots. In one of the boldest bits of chicanery in Valley real estate history, the syndicate named the town Owensmouth, implying it was near the new mouth of the Owens River (a.k.a. the terminus of the Los Angeles Aqueduct) — never mind that it was 15 miles distant and still a year away from completion.

Owensmouth grew fitfully at first, but the aqueduct’s water — and new connections to Los Angeles via a Pacific Electric Railway line that ran down the center of Sherman Way — kept the little town alive long enough for residents to jettison the name in favor of Canoga Park.

It wasn’t until the end of World War II, when the Valley became the red-hot center of SoCal’s suburban boom, that Canoga Park and the future would finally meet in the clean rooms and laboratories of Rocketdyne, TRW, Boeing and other aerospace companies that flocked to the area.

Unfortunately, the future is fickle. Waves of industry consolidation, the end of the space shuttle program and the general exodus of much of the Valley’s aerospace industry to other parts of the country hit Canoga Park hard. Now, only Aerojet Rocketdyne remains, and Canoga Park has transitioned into a bedroom community better known for Sherman Way’s antique stores than for cutting-edge space flight technology.

Neighborhood highlights

Suburban living that’s (relatively) affordable: Unlike closer-in Valley nabes like Sherman Oaks and Studio City, Canoga Park prices rarely range into the seven figures, with many homes available right around the $500K mark.

A touch of the past: The remnants of Owensmouth can still be seen along Sherman Way, in Canoga Park’s Antique Row. These brick buildings from the 1920s and 1930s took a beating in the Northridge quake but lived to tell the tale.

Indoors / Outdoors: If nature is your thing, there are plenty of state parks and open spaces a short drive away; shoppers and mall walkers will appreciate the proximity to Warner Center’s retail offerings.

Neighborhood challenges

A long road to recovery: The loss of the aerospace industry is a blow that Canoga Park has yet to fully bounce back from, with weed shops and payday loan outlets lining many formerly thriving business corridors.

Expert insight

Ashish Trivedi, licensed partner and president of Engel & Volkers, a Valley real estate firm, said there’s been a push to revitalize Canoga Park. Single-family homes that neighbor mall behemoth Westfield Topanga in particular have seen increases in value and demand, he said.

Canoga Park is “a little more community-based” than other parts of Los Angeles, he said. “The price affordability factor is also huge.”

Market snapshot

Portions of the 91303, 91304, and 91307 ZIP Codes overlap the Canoga Park area.

In the 91303 ZIP, the median price for single-family homes in August was $571,000, based on six sales, according to CoreLogic. The median price in the 91304 ZIP, based on 28 sales, was $578,000, and in the 91307 ZIP, 36 sales produced a median price of $641,000.

Report card

Canoga Park schools include N.E.W. Academy Canoga Park, which scored 812 out of 1,000 in the 2013 Academic Performance Index. Canoga Park Elementary had a score of 750 and Hart Street Elementary scored 703. Christopher Columbus Middle and Canoga Park Senior High scored 698 and 693, respectively.

hotproperty@latimes.com