Welcome back to Spooky L.A., a series where we explore the frights and spirits of Los Angeles.
Today’s story takes us through the lovely neighborhood of Los Feliz. Known for its charming Spanish-style homes and restaurants and boutiques lining Vermont and Hillhurst avenues, this Northeast L.A. neighborhood has a dark history filled with ghosts, murders, and a rumored curse.
Historical writer Hadley Meares walks us through the haunting of Los Feliz.
Wait, there’s a curse in Los Feliz?
Los Feliz's ghostly history dates back to the 1860s. Meares said the telling of the curse started with early L.A. historian, Horace Bell, who told the story of the curse of Los Feliz.
It started in 1863 during the smallpox epidemic. At the time a hilly portion of Los Feliz, then called Rancho Los Feliz, was owned by the bachelor Don Antonio Feliz. He had no children of his own, but he had a niece named Petranilla who he was very fond of.
The story goes that in his will, Petranilla was set to inherit Rancho Los Feliz. But when smallpox hit the ranch, Don Antonio Feliz sent Petranilla off to Los Angeles to escape the disease. When she returned, a group of lawyers had convinced Antonio to sell them the land and leave Petranilla out of his will.
Believing she'd been swindled out of her inheritance, as the story goes, she cast a curse on Los Feliz.
“She said, 'I see a great flood spreading destruction. I see the grand oaks wither in the tongues of flames. The wrath of heaven and vengeance of hell shall fall upon this place,'” Meares said.
As it turns out, Petranilla wasn’t cheated out her inheritance after all.
“In reality, the land was bought, fair and square, and Petranilla actually lived to a happy old age of 92. But it's a great story.” said Meares.
And whether or not the curse is true, one man did have some bad luck on the land - future owner Griffith J. Griffith.
Ghost stories of Griffith Park
Many believe that Griffith Park is haunted by several spirits, including the spirit of Griffith J. Griffith. He infamously shot his wife in the face in the early 1900s. When he owned the land, a giant flood happened and “workers saw both Don Antonio and Petranilla’s ghost riding the waves of the flood, laughing at the land’s misfortune,” said Meares.
After having no luck with farming the land, Griffith eventually gave the land over the city in 1896 to be turned into what is now known as Griffith Park.
“It's said at the signing of his handover of the land to the city, Don Antonio made an appearance at a party celebrating it and told them that he had invited all his sub demons to join all these rich people celebrating that his land had now been stolen again by the city,” Meares said.
Some have reported seeing the spirit of Walt Disney lurking around the park’s carousel, which he used to ride with his family. And in Beachwood Canyon, the ghost of British actress Peg Entwistle reportedly haunts the area. She jumped to her death from the Hollywood sign in 1932 and it’s said you can smell the scent of her gardenia perfume around the sign.
The La Bianca House
Los Feliz’s sinister side of history also traces back to the Manson family murders during the late 1960s.
After the gruesome murders of actress Sharon Tate and her friends on Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, Manson family followers found their next victims at a large Spanish-style home on Waverley Drive owned by Rosemary and Leno LaBianca. The husband and wife were found dead, stabbed multiple times.
As horrid a tale it is, their murders were a turning point in the investigation of the Manson family murders as people began to realize that a group of serial killers was on the loose.
Spooked? I know we are. That’s it for today’s chilling history of Los Feliz. You can read more ghost stories on Los Feliz from Hadley Meares here.
