The History Of El Dorado Park Estates
Every neighborhood has a backstory. El Dorado Park Estates happens to have a particularly interesting one, because it grew up in lockstep with the park that gives it its name.
Here is how a stretch of eastern Long Beach turned into one of the city’s most successful postwar suburbs.
Before The Houses
El Dorado Park Estates sits on land that the City of Long Beach annexed in 1960, along what is now the Artesia–Norwalk Drain and near the San Gabriel River floodplain.
At that time, this part of Long Beach was still largely undeveloped suburban fringe. The city was looking east, planning for growth, and working on a new regional park along the river to provide both recreation and flood protection.
Enter S & S Construction
In the early 1960s, S & S Construction, later known as Shapell Industries, began work on what would become El Dorado Park Estates. The company, founded in 1955 by David Shapell, Nathan Shapell, and Max Webb, chose this area for its first large scale neighborhood.
Development started in 1962 and continued into the early 1970s.
Original marketing highlighted:
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Modern, mid century inspired architecture
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Wide streets and underground utilities
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Quality construction with lath and plaster interiors and stone or brick exteriors
In the mid 1960s, prices ranged from about 33,600 to 46,500 dollars.
Building A Neighborhood Next To A New Park
At the same time the neighborhood was rising, Long Beach was building out El Dorado Regional Park. The park officially opened in 1964 and eventually grew into a 640 acre complex divided into several “Areas,” including El Dorado East Regional Park on the city’s eastern edge.
Area II and Area III of the park, which include lakes, trails, archery, camping, and Glider Hill, sit directly north and west of El Dorado Park Estates.
A colorful detail from the park’s history: when the city needed land for a fire station serving the area, the El Dorado Park Estates developers declined to dedicate a parcel inside the tract. As a result, the fire station was built inside Area III of the park, just off Wardlow Road.
The result is a neighborhood and a park that were literally planned around each other from the very beginning.
Newcomb School Joins The Picture
In 1962, Newcomb Junior High (now Newcomb K–8 Academy) opened to serve the new homes in El Dorado Park Estates and surrounding neighborhoods.
Decades later, Newcomb would be rebuilt under a bond program and recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School and a California Distinguished School, a nice validation of the original “complete neighborhood” vision.
How The Neighborhood Has Evolved
Over the last sixty years, El Dorado Park Estates has evolved in predictable but positive ways:
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Many original owners stayed for decades, creating very low turnover
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Some homes remain in near original condition, often prized by mid century fans
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Many others have been updated with open kitchens, new primary suites, and modern outdoor living spaces
Despite changes in style, the underlying bones of the neighborhood have stayed the same. It is still a tract of roomy single family homes on wide streets, right next to a major regional park.
What began as a postwar subdivision is now one of the most enduring examples of a planned mid century neighborhood in Long Beach.
