A Southern California Without Orange Groves? One of the Last Could Soon Be Gone

Years later, she watched the groves get cut down for housing, again and again.

“It happened so quickly in the ’60s. It’s sad,” said Ms. Cowsill, 64, a pharmacy technician who now lives on a hay farm in Oregon.

Los Angeles County today has a severe housing shortage, in part fueled by a resistance to building more, cheaper homes. But development on the Bothwell property — which is nestled between the Woodland Hills and Tarzana neighborhoods — would most likely not have much of an effect on access to affordable housing. The homes that border the property reach easily into seven-figures and feature expansive grounds, outdoor pools and tennis courts, according to property records and satellite images.

Todd Pratt, a manager partner at Evolution Strategic, a Los Angeles development company, said: “It’s completely unfeasible today to expect it to remain as a viable farmed property when you have tons and tons of acres of farmland available a very short distance away.”

Mr. Pratt, whose company primarily works on developing large, mixed-use buildings, added, “The city needs to grow and evolve. There is no reason that should be retained as a historic farm. Maybe you keep a half-acre with some orange groves on it as a small park, but the rest of it should be developed.”

For now, the historic designation is uncertain, though Mr. Blumenfield says he is confident his colleagues on the City Council will cooperate. He noted the council’s powers are limited when it comes to deciding the future of the ranch, but said the designation would at least give the city leverage to request some of the grove be preserved and perhaps opened to the public for educational and historical purposes.

“We’re often looking at situations where we’re saving the last of the Art Deco houses, the last of this, the last of that,” he said.

Jeff Ward is the fourth-generation owner of E. Waldo Ward & Son, a shop that sells jams and marmalades in Sierra Madre, 30 miles east of Bothwell Ranch. Long before Mr. Ward took over the store, the family citrus farm was about 30 acres, but it’s now less than a tenth the size, only about an acre of which is made up of oranges.

Mr. Ward says he’s seen too many nearby groves turn from branches to buildings.

“Things change,” he said.

Jose A. Del Real reported from Los Angeles and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs from New York.