Walking Tours
Guided Walking Tours
Join us for historic walking tours of La Jolla and experience its unique history, architecture, landscape and more with LJHS Historian, Carol Olten.
Walking tours are NOT held weekly - check out our schedule below for upcoming dates!
Comfortable shoes, sunscreen, hats and sunglasses are encouraged.
$20 per person | $10 for LJHS members
People & Places:
Rogues or royals? Historical legends or misfits? Landmarks with secret stories? Join Historian Carol Olten and explore novel and unfamiliar stories about some of La Jolla’s distinctive people and places in a new series of guided walking tours.
All tours will begin at 2 PM at the site location. Visit the links below to purchase your tickets. $10 for members | $20 for General Admission. Each tour will be about an hour and a half.
Guided Walking Tours
UPCOMING
Anna’s Company
Thursday, February 27th
2 PM
Meet in front of Eddy V’s, 1270 Prospect Street
Green Dragon Colony founder Anna Held was known for gathering a collective of artists, writers and actors around her rustic clutch of cottages at the corner of Cave and Prospect streets in the 1890s. Tour participants will revisit the site learn about its dubious guests, like Madame Modjeska, Lord Huberon, and a pair of antique Parisian dolls named Olive Haps and Mishaps.
Polemics of Goldfish Point
Thursday, March 27
2 PM
Meet in front of Cave Store, 1325 Coast Blvd.
Controversial characters seem to have been the mainstay of historic rambings about this scenic cliffside topographic wonder offering views to here and back. For starters there’s the infamous Professor Gustav Schulz, who dug the steps to Sunny Jim Cave to make a tourist dollar in the early 20th century; Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum, just visiting in 1905 who wrote a book about it called Sea Fairies, and two entertaining cliff jumpers named Horace Poole and Helen Keyes (the latter accompanied by a monkey). Meet in front of Cave Store for a circus in the making!
The Man Who Planted Trees
Thursday, April 10
2 PM
Meet at Union Circle Park, Park Row, La Jolla
He was a quiet little fellow of good Philadelphia standing who got off the train in La Jolla in 1904. His name, Walter Lieber, and he thought he could genuinely improve the place. Plant some trees. Build a few really nice cottages. Get rid of trash in Scripps Park. He did a good job for the rest of his life and, after he died in 1945, the community honored him with a flagpole flying the California Republic flag in the center of Union Circle Park. The park is on a small rise of a hilltop above the village, now known as Park Row. We meet around the flagpole bearing Mr. Lieber’s plaque.
Self-Guided Tours
Want to explore the charm of La Jolla at your own pace? Choose from our themed self-guided tours. Learn about the unique history, architecture and landscape of our beautiful coastal region. Put on your walking shoes and let the adventure begin!
La Valencia Hotel
A Walking Tour of La Jolla Village
This hour-long tour of La Jolla focuses on significant landmarks and is designed to provide insight into the past century of community growth and development. Included are examples of early beach cottages, European architectural styles that developed starting in the 1920s, as well as modern buildings.
Historic Beach Cottages of La Jolla
Before paved streets, running water, and grand hotels, La Jolla was a village of small cottages that clung to the cliffs and nestled in the canyons along the rising topography of the coastline. Craftsman-style beach cottages were the vernacular architecture of the late-19th century and early-20th century. Of basic design and simple wood construction, the cottages on this driving tour remain a window into early La Jolla.
WT MacDonald House, Architect Richard Requa 1933, photomontage by Nick Agelidis
Jazz Age La Jolla: Architecture of the 1920s
In 1920s La Jolla, the automobile and electric streetcar encouraged residential developments such as the Barber Tract, Hermosa, Muirlands, and the Shores. Beach cottages gave way to the work of architects who adapted historic styles to modern sensibilities. These early subdivisions built on the outskirts of the Village continue to define neighborhoods, street patterns, and historic architecture.
Mid-Century Modern Architecture
The 1950s and 1960s were decades of a remarkably rich creative culture in La Jolla, and a group of modernist architects emerged to spearhead new, influential, and enduring ideas in building design. This driving tour highlights residential, commercial, and academic buildings designed in the modern style and reflecting influences ranging from the Bauhaus to Frank Lloyd Wright.
Wheeler Bailey Apartment, La Jolla, 1932, Architect Irving J Gill, Collection of the San Diego History Center
Irving Gill’s San Diego
The Arts and Crafts movement was becoming popular when Irving Gill (1870-1936) arrived in San Diego in 1893, and his early designs reflect this aesthetic. By 1908, his mature style characteristic of early modernism was beginning, and he became known for the design of clean facades devoid of ornamentation. Gill is now regarded as a pioneer in the early modern movement in architecture. This extensive tour of Gill’s designs cover three decades of his work, and ranges from Coronado to Oceanside, La Jolla to Hillcrest and Bankers Hill.
The tour maps above are the intellectual property of the La Jolla Historical Society and are provided for personal use only. All rights reserved, including but not limited to reproduction, distribution or sale, display or performance, and/or the creation of derivative works.
Behind the Scenes Member Series
Visit behind-the-scenes places in La Jolla and experience readings and programs on some of the community’s unusual artists and writers who have lived and visited here in a new members-only series coordinated by historian Carol Olten.
