Walking L.A. #25, Brand Park and Kenneth Village, 2 miles.

As Barbara and I hike our way through Los Angeles history, we learn a lot about the people that streets are named after. Today we "met" the namesake for Glendale's Brand Boulevard—Leslie C. Brand, the man who partnered to bring the Pacific Electric Railroad to the little settlement of Glendale in 1904, organized utilities, and sponsored local businesses. Brand purchased 31 acres at the base of the Verdugo Mountains and built El Miradero, a mansion inspired by the East Indian Pavilion at the 1893 Columbian World Exposition. He willed his estate to the City of Glendale, and in 1956 Miradero became the Brand Library, and the surrounding grounds Brand Park—the start of our hike. If you like architecture, Miradero alone is worth seeing up close—and then there's the connected art gallery, recital hall, sculpture court, and Brand Studios; the (relocated) 1888 Queen Anne/Eastlake Doctor's House; the traditional Whispering Pine Teahouse (a historic landmark building.) And, for Barbara and me, the Miss American Green Cross statue at the base of a new mountain trail for us to explore! We left Brand Park and walked Grandview Avenue through the North Cumberland Historic District down to Kenneth Village, a single block that, at the turn of the 20th century, was two grocery stores, a theater, and inn in the middle of nowhere, and now houses restaurants, yoga and fitness studios, coffee houses, and yogurt shops. The quaint, old-town feel of Larchmont Village, but smaller. :)