Home Remodeling in Thousand Oaks, California

The city of Thousand Oaks is situated in the Conejo Valley in southeastern Ventura County, halfway along with Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, and 12 miles east of the Pacific Ocean. Conejo Valley lies at 900 feet; 55 of its 1,884 square miles are located within Thousand Oaks city limits. For comparison, the city is larger in Place than Long Beach, CA, and 20 percent larger than San Francisco.

Designated open-space plants areas occupy 34 percent of the city as of 2017 (15,194 acres). 928 acres of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA) is within the southern borders of the city. Thousand Oaks is within the Greater Los Angeles Area and is 38 miles west of Los Angeles. The closest coastal city is adjoining Malibu, which may be reached through winding roads, a bike path, or hiking trails crossing the Santa Monica Mountains. Conejo Valley is bordered by the Santa Monica’s to the south, Conejo Mountains to the west and north, and the Simi Hills to the northeast.

Newbury Park currently makes up concerning 40 percent of the city’s total land area.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total Place of 55.2 square miles (143 km). 55.0 square miles (142 km) of it is land and 0.15 square miles (0.39 km) of it (0.27%) is water.

Although Thousand Oaks has several shopping centers, including the Janss Marketplace mall, The Oaks mall, and W. Thousand Oaks Blvd., a large ration of the city’s inhabitants flesh and blood in suburban communities a turn away from from the poster centers of the city. The large housing districts near Lynn Road to the north and west are an example of this sprawl, despite attempts by Ventura County planners to shorten it. Many housing tracts are in the company of walls. This design is intended to save heavy traffic away from residential roads.

The physiography is dominated by prominent knolls, surrounding mountains, open vistas and indigenous oak woodland. It is home to 50–60,000 oak trees, and the city is characterized by its many oak trees and rolling green hills.

The northern parts consist of mountainous terrain in the Simi Hills, Conejo Mountains and Mount Clef Ridge. Narrow canyons such as Hill Canyon clip through the steeper mountainous areas. Conejo Mountain and Conejo Grade are found in westernmost Newbury Park, while the southernmost parts of Thousand Oaks are made taking place of Russell Valley, Hidden Valley and the steep rugged slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains. The height ranges from 500 feet in the northwest to the 2,403 feet Simi Peak. The major drainage is Conejo Creek (Arroyo Conejo).

Wetlands put in Lake Eleanor, Paradise Falls in Wildwood Regional Park, Twin Ponds in Dos Vientos and the 7-acre Hill Canyon Wetlands.

Thousand Oaks’ fauna includes mammals such as mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, bears, grey fox and mule deer, as skillfully as smaller mammals as the striped and spotted skunk, California raccoon, Virginia opossum, Audubon’s cottontail, long-tailed weasel, Botta’s pocket gopher, ring-tailed cat, California vole, western brush rabbit, western gray squirrel, and several species of rats and mice, where the most common are deer mouse and Merriam’s kangaroo rat. The mountain lions which can be encountered or observed in most larger open-spaces in the city. The city recommends hikers not to hike alone, and always to keep children near. Mountain lions have been encountered numerous time in recent years, such as in Lynn Ranch in 2017 and Newbury Park in 2016. but is usually found in the next-door Simi Hills, Santa Monica Mountains, and the Santa Susana Mountains. The drought may have brought a bear cub into the city in 2021. The natural dwelling for an abundance of native animals, such as coyotes, hawks, crawdads, ducks, turtles, mule deer, numerous songbirds, mountain lions, several species of snakes, and numerous species of raptors.

Some of the amphibians and reptiles found in Thousand Oaks count up lizards such as side-blotched lizards, southern alligator lizards and western fence lizards, as competently as the southwestern pond turtle and crawdads, and numerous species of snake, including southern Pacific rattlesnakes, San Diego gopher snakes, striped racers, California kingsnakes, common kingsnakes, ringneck snakes, and western aquatic garter snakes. Some amphibians found in Thousand Oaks improve ensatina, slender salamander, western toad, American bullfrog, California toad, Pacific tree frog, and the California red-legged frog.

There have been observed a total of 171 bird species within the city limits. The most commonly encountered avifauna add together the home sparrow, house finch, Brewer’s blackbird, California towhee, spotted towhee, oak titmouse, acorn woodpecker, and California quail. Raptor population densities in the Conejo Valley, which fittingly has some of the highest quantities of raptors in the U.S. Some of the raptors found in the City of Thousand Oaks enhance the golden eagle, red-tailed hawk, Cooper’s hawk, marsh hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, red-shouldered hawk, ferruginous hawk, pigeon hawk, prairie falcon, turkey vulture, barn owl, great horned owl, screech owl, American kestrel, and the white-tailed kite.

Thousand Oaks is house to higher than 100 species of plants, while 400 species can be found within 100 sq. mi. of the city. There are four endangered forest species: Conejo buckwheat, Santa Monica dudleya, Conejo dudleya and Lyon’s pentachaeta. There are surrounded by 50- and 60,000 oak trees in Thousand Oaks. Four oak species are native to Thousand Oaks: valley oak, coast stir oak, scrub oak, and Palmer’s oak. The city’s largest oak has a trunk of 12 ft. in diameter and is located at Chumash Indian Museum. Thousand Oaks has the designation “Tree City USA” and has expected the Trail Town USA Hall of Fame award.

Thousand Oaks is house to endemic species found nowhere else upon Earth. The wildflower species Conejo buckwheat, which is original to the Conejo Valley, is found lonesome in Wildwood Regional Park and near the Conejo Grade. It single-handedly grows upon volcanic rock, and has orange flowers which bloom April–July. It is in misfortune of becoming extinct. Another endemic species to Thousand Oaks, Conejo dudleya, is found throughout the valley, including in Wildwood Regional Park and next in the Santa Monica Mountains.

A notable tree is the 300-year-old “Historic Sycamore Tree”, which is designated Ventura County Landmark No. 44 and Thousand Oaks Historical Landmark No. 2. It is located at the “Tri-Village Complex” at Stagecoach Inn, Newbury Park.

Native flora can be seen at botanical gardens throughout the city, including at Gardens of the World, Conejo Valley Botanic Garden, the ethnobotanic gardens at Chumash Indian Museum, and along the Nature Trail at Stagecoach Inn in Newbury Park.

The region experiences a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa in the Köppen climate classification). Vegetation is typical of Mediterranean environments, with chaparral and grasses on the hillsides and numerous western valley oaks. Its height above sea level ranges from very nearly 500 to 900 feet (excluding the mountains and hills). The Place has slightly cooler temperatures than the surrounding areas, as it receives cooler let breathe from the ocean through various hill and mountain passes. On March 10 and 11, 2006, snow fell on the height of Boney Mountain, the first snow to fall in the area in just about 20 years. Snow furthermore fell upon Boney Peak on December 17 and 18, 2008.

In line taking into account the in flames of coastal California, temperatures at solar noon tend to fluctuate surrounded by 70 and 80 °F (21 and 27 °C) during summer, and rarely drop below 60–65 °F (16–18 °C) during winter.

The Newbury Park ration of Thousand Oaks has the coolest summer weather taking into consideration highs averaging roughly 80 degrees compared to 90 degrees for central Thousand Oaks.

One of the obsolete names used for the area was Conejo Mountain Valley, as used by the founder of Newbury Park, Egbert Starr Newbury, in the 1870s. During the 1920s, today’s Thousand Oaks was home to 100 residents. In the 1920s came talks of coming going on with a broadcast for the specific Place of Thousand Oaks. A local publicize contest was held, where 14-year-old Bobby Harrington’s name opinion won: Thousand Oaks. The valley is characterized by its tens of thousands of oak trees (50,000–60,000 in 2012).

When the city was incorporated in 1964, the Janss Corporation suggested the say Conejo City (City of Conejo). A petition was signed by ample residents to put Thousand Oaks on the ballot. An overwhelming majority—87%—of the city’s 19,000 residents voted for the make known Thousand Oaks during the September 29, 1964, election.

Chumash people were the first to inhabit the area, settling there more than 10,000 years ago. It was home to two major villages: Sap’wi (“House of the Deer”) and Satwiwa (“The Bluffs”). Sap’wi is now by the Chumash Interpretive Center which is home to multipart 2,000-year-old pictographs. Satwiwa is the home of the Native American Indian Culture Center which sits at the foothills of Mount Boney in Newbury Park, a sacred mountain to the Chumash.

A smaller village, Yitimasɨh, was located where Wildwood Elementary School sits today. The Place surrounding Wildwood Regional Park has been inhabited by the Chumash for thousands of years. Some of the artifacts discovered in Wildwood include rock tools, shell beads and arrowheads. Another little Chumash settlement, known as Šihaw (Ven-632i), was located where Lang Ranch sits today. A cave containing several swordfish and cupules pictographs is located here. Two additional villages were located by today’s Ventu Park Road in Newbury Park. These were populated 2,000 years ago and had a population of 100–200 in each village. Other villages included Lalimanuc (Lalimanux) and Kayɨwɨš (Kayiwish) by Conejo Grade.

The Chumash moreover had several summer encampments, including one located where Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza currently stands, known as Ipuc (Ven-654). Another summer encampment was located at the current location of Los Robles Hospital.

Each village was ruled by a chief or several chieftains, who often traveled amid villages to discuss matters of common interest. A council of elders directed village liveliness and organized events. Most villages had a cemetery, gaming field, a sweat house, and a place for ceremonies. Locally discovered tribal artifacts are at display at Satwiwa Native American Indian Culture Center and the Chumash Indian Museum.

The region’s recorded records dates to 1542, when Spanish trailblazer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo landed at Point Mugu and claimed the home for Spain. The Battle of Triunfo, which took place by Triunfo Creek, was waged more than land between original Chumash and the Spanish newcomers.

From 1804 to 1848, Thousand Oaks was allocation of Alta California, which originally was a Spanish polity in North America. It was the Spaniards who first named it Conejo Valley, or Valley of Rabbits. The Spaniards and native Chumash clashed numerous time in disputes higher than land. Conejo Valley was unqualified the say El Rancho Conejo in 1803. This year, Jose Polanco and Ignacio Rodriguez were contracted El Rancho Conejo by Governor José Joaquín de Arrillaga of Alta California. The house contained 48,671.56 acres. El Conejo was just one of two house grants in what became Ventura County, the additional being Rancho Simi.

As a outcome of the Mexican War of Independence in 1822, Alta California became a Mexican territory. In 1822, Captain José de la Guerra y Noriega filed Conejo Valley as share of the Mexican home grant. It remained a allowance of Mexico until the short-lived California Republic was traditional in 1846. It became a allocation of the U.S. after California gained statehood in 1850. The valley was now known as Rancho El Conejo. The ranch times began next the de la Guerra relations sold thousands of acres through the 1860s and to come 1870s.

Two men owned most of Conejo Valley in the 1870s: John Edwards, who came from Wales in 1849, and Howard Mills, who came from Minnesota in 1870. While Edwards owned most of present-day Thousand Oaks and Newbury Park, Mills owned most of Westlake Village and Hidden Valley. Edwards’ home was located upon an acre of estate where The Oaks Mall currently is located, while Mills built his house where Westlake Lake sits today. The third person to buy former Rancho El Conejo land was Egbert Starr Newbury. He bought 2,259 acres of land here in 1874, land which stretched from Old Town Thousand Oaks and into today’s Newbury Park. He later time-honored the valley’s first make known office in 1875: Newbury Park Post Office. When the Conejo Valley School District was acknowledged in March 1877, there were 126 residents thriving in Conejo Valley.

In the late 19th century, Newbury Park was upon the stagecoach route along with Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. The Stagecoach Inn (Grand Union Hotel) was built in 1876, and is now a California Historical Landmark and museum.

Thousand Oaks was house to a Norwegian community in the late 1890s and into the future 1900s, known as Norwegian Colony. Norwegian settlers were accompanied by the first to decide in Conejo Valley. The Norwegian Colony was located at today’s intersection of Moorpark- and Olsen Roads, now home to California Lutheran University and surrounding areas. The Norwegian Colony constituted of higher than 650 acres and stretched from Mount Clef Ridge to Avenida de Los Arboles. The son of Norwegian immigrants donated his ranch to California Lutheran College in the 1950s. California Lutheran University is now house to the Scandinavian American Cultural and Historical Foundation and the Scandinavian Festival.

Many place names are named after Norwegian immigrants such as the Olsen and Pedersen families. The first Norwegians came from the village of Stranda by Storfjorden. Ole Anderson bought 199 acres here, while Lars Pederson owned 111 acres. Other Norwegian pioneers plus included Ole Nilsen, George Hansen and Nils Olsen. A major contribution was the construction of the handmade Norwegian Grade in 1911, a mile-long road leading from Thousand Oaks to Santa Rosa Valley.

With no doctors or hospitals nearby, the Norwegian Colony was short-lived. The Olsen family free seven of their ten children, while Ole Anderson, Lars Pederson, and George Hansen all died in 1901 due to a diphtheria epidemic.

Newbury Park was a more normal community than Thousand Oaks at the face of the 20th century. A few lots existed to the fore in the 1900s, wedged surrounded by Borchard land upon the south and Friedrich land on the north. The Janss family, developers of Southern California subdivisions, purchased 10,000 acres (40 km) in the in advance 20th century. They eventually created plans for a “total community”, and the read out remains prominently featured in the city. Despite yet to be aspirations, no large subdivisions were developed until the 1920s. The further was slow and hampered even more under the Great Depression of the 1930s. Besides agriculture, the movie industry became an important industry in the 1920s and 1930s.

Between 1950 and 1970, Conejo Valley experienced a population boom, and increased its population from 3,000 to 30,000 residents. From 3,500 residents in 1957, Thousand Oaks had higher than 103,000 inhabitants by 1989. While ranching and agriculture were the dominant industries until the 1950s, a number of other businesses appeared throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Particularly many high-tech firms moved to Thousand Oaks in the ’60s and ’70s. Packard Bell and Technology Instrument Company were two high-technology businesses that moved into the Newbury Park industrial park in the 1960s. Other companies that followed included Westinghouse Astroelectronics Laboratory, Semtech Corporation, Purolator Inc., and Westland Plastics.

Jungleland USA put Thousand Oaks on the map in the 1920s and helped attract Hollywood producers to the city. Hundreds of movies have been filmed in Thousand Oaks. Some of the first films to be made here were The Birth of a Nation (1915) at Jungleland USA and Roaring Ranch (1930) at the Stagecoach Inn. Thousand Oaks Boulevard was featured in the “Walls of Jericho” scenes in the film It Happened One Night (1934). A western village was erected at California Lutheran University for the filming of Welcome to Hard Times (1967), while Elvis Presley and John Wayne starred in several westerns made in Wildwood Regional Park. A welcoming road, Flaming Star Avenue, is named after the film Flaming Star (1960) starring Elvis Presley, which was filmed here. Other movies filmed in the valley included Lassie Come Home (1943), To the Shores of Iwo Jima (1945) and The Dukes of Hazzard (1979–85). Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis visited Thousand Oaks for the filming of Hollywood or Bust (1956), which included a scene filmed on Live Oak Street.

Movie actor Joel McCrea, who had been advised by Will Rogers to buy land in the area, raised his family on a 3,000-acre (1,200 ha) ranch he had acquired in the in advance 1930s. Numerous celebrities difficult joined McCrea and relocated to the Conejo Valley, including Dean Martin, Bob Hope, Roy Rogers, Strother Martin, Virginia Mayo, Michael O’Shea, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, Ronald Colman, George Brent, Eve Arden, Alan Ladd, Richard Widmark, Charles Martin Smith, and Bing- and Kurt Russell.

While the city was home to 1,700 businesses in 1970, Thousand Oaks had 11,000 businesses in town by 1988.

The world’s largest independent biotechnology company, Amgen, was customary in Newbury Park in 1980.

Louis Goebel of New York bought five lots off Ventura Boulevard (today’s Thousand Oaks Boulevard) in 1925. He worked for the Universal film studio, and approved to create his own film industry zoo after the delay of Universal Zoo in the mid-1920s. He conventional Goebel’s Lion Farm in 1926, situated where Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza is located today. Goebel began when five lions and seven malamute dogs, but he soon acquired further animals such as giraffes, camels, hippos, monkeys, tigers, gorillas, seals and other exotic animals.

It became home to several animals used for Leo the Lion MGM logo. There were held public animal shows, which drew thousands of spectators from throughout California. The animals from the park have been used in many movies and TV series, including many of the Tarzan films; The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which used the site as a location, and Doctor Doolittle (1967). Goebel himself camped by the filming site of Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932) by Lake Sherwood to watch his lions during filming.

It became one of Southern California’s most popular tourists attractions in the 1940s and 1950s, when the 170-acre park offered shows, lion training, elephant rides, train rides, safari tram buses and more. The park changed name to Jungleland USA in 1956 after Disneyland was established. The park well along went bankrupt in May 1969, due to competition from parks such as Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm and Universal Studios. The park’s 1,800 animals were sold at a public auction in October 1969.

The City of Thousand Oaks was incorporated on October 7, 1964. On September 29, 1964, voters credited the inclusion and fixed the name. The inclusion became official once the certificates of election were filed when the California Secretary of State, and the LP of affidavit was filed behind the Ventura County Clerk.

The results of the cityhood election was determined on September 24, 1964. 2,780 residents voted to set taking place a city, while 1,821 had voted no to incorporation. Certain areas however tried to set up its own municipality. An try at a cityhood election in Newbury Park fruitless in 1963, as Talley Corporation and Janss Rancho Conejo Industrial Park refused to colleague the efforts. Reba Hays Jeffries, a local rival of cityhood, told interviewers why she thought the cityhood election failed: Cityhood backers had to collect signatures from owners who represented 29% of the land that was to be incorporated. As the efforts collected 29% of registered voters, rather than owners of 29% of the land, the conduct yourself never came on the ballot. Most of the in the past unincorporated Newbury Park lands were annexed into Thousand Oaks through the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, forming the Newbury Park neighborhood within the city. Casa Conejo and Ventu Park are the unaided parts of Newbury Park left, which are not parts of Thousand Oaks. Lynn Ranch also settled to remain outside city limits.

Two-thirds of the master planned community of Westlake was annexed by Thousand Oaks in two portions – in 1968 and 1972. The within reach neighborhood of North Ranch remained an unincorporated Place until January 1973, when Thousand Oaks approved the annexation of North Ranch. North Ranch borders Oak Park, an unincorporated area where voters have prearranged not to be annexed into Thousand Oaks. Dos Vientos is a 2,350-unit housing take forward which was endorsed by the council in April 1988. The master-planned community was the largest residential project ever in Newbury Park.

Thousand Oaks is encouraging mixed-use retail and housing progress along the downtown ration of Thousand Oaks Boulevard. The city is built-out within the confines of the Conejo Valley and has adopted a smart growth strategy as there is no room for the sprawling suburban increase the city is known for.

Increased forward movement in Moorpark and Simi Valley in the late 1990s and upfront 2000s caused the Moorpark Freeway (Highway 23) to become heavily congested during both morning and afternoon hurry hours. A major widening project began in 2008.

On March 30, 2016, California Lutheran University and the NFL Rams team reached an concurrence that allowed the team to have regular season training operations at CLU’s campus in Thousand Oaks for the next-door two years. The Rams paid for two practice fields, paved parking, and modular buildings constructed on the northwestern corner of the campus.

On November 7, 2018, a lone gunman killed 12 people in a addition shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill. Days later, the Woolsey Fire threatened the community, burning homes across Ventura and Los Angeles Counties. The ember continued most of November, charring in this area 100,000 acres and absorbing multiple homes in the region.