Hermosa Beach

Hermosa Beach is a city-owned beach with almost two miles of ocean frontage, running along Santa Monica Bay until it meets King Harbor in Redondo Beach. It is one of the most popular beaches in Los Angeles County, known for good surf, good swimming areas, and its many volleyball nets, and it hosts volleyball tournaments and surf festivals through the year. Lifeguards are on duty during daylight hours, and beach tennis, diving, surfing, and swimming are all popular.

Facilities include restrooms, showers, a concession stand, playground equipment, beach wheelchairs, and access to the beach bike path, with restaurants nearby. Parking is in lots and metered street spaces, and the beach is served by Commuter Express 438 at Manhattan Avenue and 29th Street and by Beach Cities Transit 109 at Manhattan Avenue and Longfellow.

The land was once part of the 1784 Rancho San Pedro Spanish land grant, later part of Rancho Sausal Redondo, and was covered with grain fields and grazed by sheep. In 1900 developers bought 1,500 acres for $35 an acre and named the development “Hermosa,” Spanish for beautiful. A wooden boardwalk was built along the Strand after a 1901 survey, and most of it was replaced with cement in 1914. The first pier, built of wood in 1904 and reaching 500 feet into the ocean, was partly washed away, and a concrete pier twice its size followed in 1913. Hermosa was mainly a resort town until the 1920s, and its population grew quickly during and after World War II as the aircraft industry expanded.