The Gated Municipality of Hidden Hills, California

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Written By H. Pike Oliver

Hidden Hills, California, is a completely gated municipality with the main entry at the northwest quadrant of the interchange of the US 101 (Ventura) Freeway and Valley Circle Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley of the Los Angeles area. ImageThere are just 626 housing units in this equestrian oriented neighborhood, all of which are on relatively large lots.  According to the United States Census, the population of the 1.68 square mile community in 2010 was1,856.

Development of Hidden Hills began in 1950 when  A. E. Hanson put up a sign on Ventura Boulevard at the intersection of Long Valley Road announcing  the availability of one-acre lots for $4,750.  A lot that had been cleared of a former residence reportedly sold for $1.6 million in 2011.

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The community is home to many noted entertainment industry celebrities. Numerous business owners and executives also live within this exclusive enclave.  One of the more notorious residents is David Sambol who Paul Muolo and Matthew Padilla identified as one of the major players in the subprime mortgage crisis in their 2008 book Chain of Blame.

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H. Pike Oliver

H. Pike Oliver focuses on master-planned communities. He is co-author of Transforming the Irvine Ranch: Joan Irvine, William Pereira, Ray Watson, and THE BIG PLAN, published by Routledge in 2022.

Early in his career, Pike worked for public agencies, including the California Governor's Office of Planning and Research, where he was a principal contributor to An Urban Strategy for California. For the next three decades, he was involved in master-planned development on the Irvine Ranch in Southern California, as well as other properties in western North America and abroad.

Beginning in 2009, Pike taught real estate development at Cornell University and directed the undergraduate program in Urban and Regional Studies. He relocated to Seattle in 2013 and, from 2016 to 2020, served as a lecturer in the Runstad Department of Real Estate at the University of Washington, where he also served as its chair.

Pike graduated from San Francisco State University's urban studies and planning program and received a master's degree in urban planning from UCLA. He is a member of the American Planning Association and the Urban Land Institute and a founder and emeritus member of the California Planning Roundtable.

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