Century City’s southside neighbor, Cheviot Hills, has had many high-profile residents roll through its affluent foothills. From Lucille Ball to Ray Bradbury to Travis Barker, the Westside neighborhood is currently enjoying a revival as one of the hottest real estate enclaves this year.
But the woman who has seen the area through all its iterations isn’t a household name, and she’s worked a lifetime to stay cozy in her home in Cheviot Hills, a neighborhood of approximately 1,400 single-family homes, most of which were built in the 1940s and early 1950s and are largely traditional in style.
“It’s a wonderful area to be in, so convenient and close to everything,” said 93-year-old Ruth Weinberg and longtime Cheviot Hills resident.
Proximity is especially important for Weinberg – she drives to and from work still.
With National Senior Citizens Day arriving Aug. 21, Weinberg celebrates her 72nd year as an employee of Abell Auction Company, Los Angeles’ first auction house showcasing fine estate property.
“I enjoy what I do. To me, it’s a day of feeling happy,” Weinberg said.
The native Angeleno joined Abell in 1943, only taking breaks to get married and have children, and in later years to care for her ill husband.
But she always found her way back to the company where “it was like a birthday party every time a lot came in. I opened things that I would never see unless I went to a museum. It’s like that even today.”
Ruth still works every weekly auction (held on Thursdays) and every quarterly fine art and antique sale conducted by Abell, now in its fourth generation of family operation.
She also volunteers regularly at Skirball Cultural Center. A civic-minded woman, Weinberg is active in any community she enters.
When she moved to Cheviot Hills 50 years ago, L.A. was in the process of building itself; the Santa Monica freeway and Westside’s first, large public park, Cheviot Hills Park, were both new, and the Santa Monica Air Line of the Pacific Electric Railway was just discontinued.
Weinberg and her husband moved there for its good schools and central location. There they raised three children in a two-story home. She remembers eating at John O’Groats on Pico Blvd. Her daughter is still close with friends who lived on the block.
In her spare time, she rests, as one would suspect. She keeps busy with managing her own finances and her house, with no plans of retiring anytime soon.
