The formation of some of the city’s nicest neighborhoods — Los Altos, Park Estates and Country Club Manor — sprang from the imagination of one of Long Beach’s most prolific land developers.
Lloyd Whaley could see past the farmland and marshes that stretched east of Bellflower Boulevard to develop what is now much of Long Beach’s modern suburbia, with its parks, libraries, a YMCA and shopping center fittingly nestled among the thousands of homes he built more than 50 years ago.
Whaley Park at 5620 Atherton St. is a reflection of the kind of amenities included in the neighborhoods he developed: a green space near Cal State Long Beach equipped with a sports field, basketball courts, roller hockey practice court, a recreation center and social hall.
“He had vision and he saw opportunities here that those of us who were born in Southern California could never see,” John Cleveland told the Press-Telegram in 1991.
Karen Robes Meeks; Press-Telegram