Suzanne Dyer
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On Saturday, October 10, artists will set up on the lawn between Via Chico and Via Corta at 10 a.m. and stay until 5 p.m. They'll be back on Sunday, October 11, for the PV Art Center's free Malaga Cove Art on the Lawn show. The listing names seven affiliated artist groups, with paintings, jewelry, ceramics, photography, wearable art and prints. Behind the booths are the arcades, tile roofs and stucco that every guidebook calls 1920s Mediterranean Revival.
The plaza's own records give a different date. The National Register nomination counts 11 contributing buildings and dates the build-out from 1925 to 1964. Only two buildings came before the war, and the second was finished around 1929 or 1931, depending on which page of the nomination you read. Most of the rest went up between 1949 and 1964. The plaza was planned in the 1920s and mostly built after the war, and the shops residents use every week sit in those later buildings.
The Plaque Says It Plainly
On Friday, July 24, 2026, the newly formed Palos Verdes Olmsted Foundation unveiled a plaque at Olmsted Place Park marking the plaza's 2021 listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The Daily Breeze described the effort as five years in the making. The plaque's wording is precise:
"Conceived as part of the master plan for the City of Palos Verdes Estates by planner Charles Cheney, and landscape architects, the Olmsted Brothers, this arcaded Mediterranean Revival plaza was built between 1925 and 1964."
The Olmsted Brothers were John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., sons of the man who designed Central Park. According to the Daily Breeze, two more plaques were made for plaza businesses. One may go at Malaga Cove Bank, and the spot for the other hasn't been chosen. Start the walk at the park. It is the one place where the whole 39-year span is written down.
The Timeline, Building by Building
This is the build-out as the nomination and other local accounts date it. Where they record an address, it's included.
| Year | Building | Address | Architect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1925 | Gardner Building | 68 Malaga Cove Plaza | Webber, Staunton and Spaulding |
| 1929 | Syndicate Building, also called Casa del Portal | Not recorded | Webber, Staunton & Spaulding |
| 1930 | Neptune Fountain dedicated | Plaza center | 17th-century copy after Giambologna |
| 1949–50 | Starr Building | Not recorded | George Smith Morlan |
| 1952 | Davis Building | 43 Malaga Cove Plaza | Walter S. Davis |
| 1954 | Courtyard Building | 430 Via Corta | Davis and Quigley |
| 1957 | Security First National Bank | Not recorded | Carrington H. Lewis |
| 1959 | Woodcock Building | Not recorded | Conrad "Pete" Clark |
| 1960 | Towle Building | 51 Malaga Cove Plaza | Leroy Young of Young and Remington |
| 1963 | Medical Plaza/Barnett Building | 36 Malaga Cove Plaza | J. V. Ouzounian |
| 1964 | Bank of America east-end wing and tower | Not recorded | Clark, Hendrickson & Knox |
Sources disagree on the Starr Building. One account says construction began in 1949, and a Palos Verdes Magazine piece dates the building to 1950. The 1964 addition was a three-story wing plus a five-story tower, the tallest piece of the plaza. It came last.
One name doesn't belong on the list. Kirtland Cutter is often linked to early Palos Verdes Estates, but the city's own history credits him with the nearby 1930 Palos Verdes Bathhouse/Beach Club, not any plaza building.
What Arrived Before the Gap
The first wave was small. Webber, Staunton and Spaulding designed the Gardner Building at 68 Malaga Cove Plaza in 1925 and the Syndicate Building, also known as Casa del Portal. The nomination's narrative says the Syndicate Building was completed in 1929, though its building inventory lists it as 1931. Then came the fountain.
According to the Palos Verdes Library District's history archive, the marble Neptune is a 17th-century copy, by an unknown artist, of Giambologna's 16th-century fountain. Arnoldo Adolfo di Segni brought it from Italy in the late 1920s. The Palos Verdes Project bought it and dedicated it at the plaza on February 16, 1930. After the Palos Verdes Estates Foundation and residents raised about $75,000, the restoration was celebrated on July 17, 2025.
The next documented construction start is 1949. For almost two decades, the fountain stood beside two buildings while the rest of the plan waited.
Where the Weekend Actually Happens
The postwar buildings are where you'll spend Art on the Lawn weekend. The architects of the 1950s and early 1960s matched the arcades so closely that the plaza reads as one composition. The nomination reflects that by treating them as contributing buildings, not later intrusions.
This walking order follows the timeline from oldest to newest and passes the show along the way:
- Olmsted Place Park. Read the July 2026 plaque.
- 68 Malaga Cove Plaza. The 1925 Gardner Building is where the plaza began.
- Neptune Fountain. Fourteen months after its restoration celebration, it looks the way the 1930 dedication intended.
- The lawn between Via Chico and Via Corta. The Art on the Lawn booths run 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days.
- 43 Malaga Cove Plaza. Malaga Cove Ranch Market occupies the 1952 Davis Building.
- 51 Malaga Cove Plaza. Yellow Vase occupies the 1960 Towle Building.
- 430 Via Corta. The 1954 Courtyard Building is the one address on the walk that isn't on Malaga Cove Plaza itself.
Eating and shopping along the way
Malaga Cove Ranch Market is a deli, bakery, market and wine-and-beer bar in one. It opens at 8 a.m. on weekends and closes at 4 p.m., an hour before the art show packs up. Weekday hours are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Yellow Vase at 51 Malaga Cove Plaza serves coffee, pastries, breakfast and lunch from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, with a florist and gift shop on site. Both close before the show does, so plan lunch early.
The newest food stop is Neptune's Frozen Treats at 55 Malaga Cove Plaza. It serves self-serve frozen yogurt, custard, gelato and sorbet. The Palos Verdes Pulse covered its planned mid-October grand opening in September 2025, which makes this its first Art on the Lawn season.
There are two retail stops. Corners of the World at 1 Malaga Cove Plaza sells imported home décor, ceramics, soaps, candles, cards and toys. Letters From Capri, a boutique for women's resortwear and accessories, was featured as a new plaza shop in Palos Verdes Magazine's 2025 holiday gift guide.
The Next Chapter Is Still in Permitting
The plaza is still changing, one tenant at a time. A Palos Verdes Estates Planning Commission memo dated June 16, 2026 covers CUP-002-26, a conditional use permit application for a specialty coffee shop with indoor and outdoor seating at 22 Malaga Cove Plaza. The applicants run Misc Coffee, which currently lists hours at its Deep Valley Drive location in Rolling Hills Estates. The memo shows that a hearing was noticed and a staff recommendation was prepared. It doesn't show that the café has opened in the plaza, so for now it remains a proposal.
Two Library Dates Around the Weekend
The Malaga Cove Library is at 2400 Via Campesina. It will be closed Friday, October 9, the day before the art show, for the Palos Verdes Library District's Staff Development Day. Two weeks later, on Saturday, October 24, the library's Gallery & Garden hosts "Finding Your Voice," the opening program of PV Writes Together. The series runs through November 25.
A 2026 roundup from Palos Verdes Source called the Malaga Cove Art on the Lawn shows a community tradition of "over 82 years." If that's right, the show began around 1944 or earlier, before the Starr Building's construction started in 1949. Artists would have been showing their work at Malaga Cove for years before most of today's arcades were built.
Homes in Palos Verdes Estates belong to the same Olmsted and Cheney plan the plaque describes, and the year a property was built and its architectural record matter when it's time to sell. If you'd like to know how your home's history affects its value, Suzanne Dyer can provide a Confidential Home Valuation grounded in more than 30 years of work on the Peninsula.