The late Paul Allen Ramsey’s influence on Toluca Lake is palpable. The longtime resident was a pioneer of the Hollywood and Los Angeles real estate industry, helping to build Ramsey-Shilling Associates into one of the area’s leading real estate brokerage firms, renowned for handling the buying and selling of high-profile residential, investment and commercial properties with expertise and professionalism. The agency’s headquarters on Riverside Drive is a Village mainstay that has served as the centerpiece for an array of community gatherings for decades. Along with being a real estate mogul, Ramsey was a tennis aficionado. His love of the sport and penchant for connecting with people led him to build the Toluca Lake Tennis Club, a private neighborhood hangout for residents and industry professionals alike that has grown into a premier tennis and fitness center in the Valley.
Above all, Ramsey was a civic leader who was dedicated to fostering genuine relationships with residents and local organizations and transforming Toluca Lake into a place where people could thrive for years to come. That commitment to community was something his son, Michael Paul Ramsey Jr., observed while growing up in the neighborhood. “My father was always involved with the local community — not only did he develop and build homes for people to live in, but he grew friendships, business partnerships and a foundation, a home, in Toluca Lake,” he says.
Here, Ramsey Jr. shares insights into the development of his father’s business ventures and their lasting impact on the community, along with his fond memories of growing up in Toluca Lake.
Shaping Toluca Lake
In 1953, Ramsey Sr. and longtime friend Leland Shilling established the Ramsey-Shilling Company. They opened their first office in Hollywood, on Wilcox Avenue, across from the Hollywood Citizen-News headquarters, where Ramsey Sr. had worked as a circulation manager after leaving the Army at the conclusion of World War II. Ramsey and Shilling sold residential and multi-residential real estate all over Hollywood, and in 1959 they expanded their business to a second office on Barham Boulevard, which is still active today. They went on to open several more offices in Hollywood and continued to grow in success and reputation.
In 1960, Toluca Lake Realty was the leading real estate brokerage in neighborhood. Ramsey Jr. shares that the owner at the time, Harry Hutchens, had paid a visit to the Ramsey household and stated that he would start marketing and selling in the Hollywood Hills, knowing that Ramsey Sr. was a top producer in the area. In response, Ramsey Sr. decided to open a Ramsey-Shilling office in Toluca Lake in 1960, just two blocks west of Patys. (The company would build its current office, on Riverside and Forman, in 1971.) In 1968, he moved his family to Toluca Lake.
“My father got more involved in selling and developing commercial real estate; it became his passion,” Ramsey Jr. shares, adding that at this point, the company had two divisions, residential and commercial, and had developed the Ramsey-Shilling Commercial division to handle the latter. Ramsey Sr. partnered with Shilling, Ed Spinney and the Volwood Company to build offices and homes in the area. Notably, he helped with the lease for the Honey Baked Ham Company, a staple in the community for many years before it closed in 2022. In addition, he was responsible for the land lease on the corner of Forest Lawn Drive and Barham Boulevard and was instrumental in the development of the office buildings there.
By the late 1980s, the Ramsey-Shilling Company was sold to a Wall Street conglomerate “and although it was bad timing then, it allowed my father to rebuild the company into Ramsey-Shilling Associates,” Ramsey Jr. says. Ramsey Sr. remained the chairman of the commercial division until it was acquired by Avison Young in 2011.
“Since then, over the decades, Ramsey-Shilling Associates has grown and nurtured its presence and relationships in the Toluca Lake community and the surrounding areas of the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood Hills and the greater Los Angeles area,” Ramsey Jr. says.
Serving the Community
When the Ramseys moved to Toluca Lake, Ramsey Sr. instantly became involved in the community and endeavored to create a space that would allow him and others to socialize with neighbors and potential business contacts while playing a sport he loved — tennis. In 1973, he set out to build the Toluca Lake Tennis Club, partnering with Hollywood producer and respected athlete Wendell Niles Jr., who developed a prolific tennis program. The club quickly became recreation hub in the community and a hideaway for the Hollywood elite, with the likes of Clint Eastwood, Dinah Shore and Charlton Heston dropping in for matches, tournaments and training sessions in between filming at the nearby studios. The facility also featured Ramsey’s Restaurant, which boasted a lounge, patio, dining and private conference room for members and nonmembers. (The space is now home to Santuari, operated by Ramsey Sr.’s grandson, Spencer Ramsey.)
“When the Toluca Lake Tennis Club began, it was much smaller,” Ramsey Jr. says. “By the mid-1980s, the partners had begun to discuss the expansion and redesign of the building.” Ramsey Sr. and Niles bought city-owned land for the expansion, and Ramsey Sr. brought in Ramsey Jr. as the architect for the redesign, which included a larger building and additional tennis courts, offices, a members’ lounge and a pool.
“Today, the Toluca Lake Tennis Club has six tennis courts, and Avison Young — the purchaser of the commercial division of Ramsey-Shilling — still has offices next to the club,” Ramsey Jr. says.
Building Relationships and Memories
“My father built relationships with everyone in the community; he knew everyone, and everyone knew him. He brought the same intensity he had in his Hollywood community to Toluca Lake. When he built the Toluca Lake Tennis Club, he became even more connected to the people in the area,” Ramsey Jr. says.
Ramsey Sr. supported several civic organizations, like the Toluca Lake Chamber of Commerce, but his fear of public speaking kept him from serving in higher-profile roles within them. (However, at least five Ramsey-Shilling Associates realtors have served as past presidents of the Chamber.) Instead, his strength lay in his ability to network with people on a more communal level. He became a member of Lakeside Golf Club in the mid-1970s, and in 1991, when he began developing properties in Newport Beach, he joined the Newport Beach Yacht Club, where he had many friends and business contacts.
Outside of civic and business activities, Ramsey Sr. and his family enjoyed the comforts of their tight-knit neighborhood, including parties at the Tennis Club and Ramsey-Shilling, as well as the Holiday Open House. Ramsey Jr. says the latter is one of his personal favorite local traditions, along with a Christmas home-decorating contest that used to be held annually by the Toluca Lake Homeowners Association. “I remember one year a house on Valley Spring Lane won for a fantastical drunken Santa display,” he recalls. “Toluca Lake is surrounded by the studios, so the creatives of the entertainment industry really thrive here.”
The family also loved spending time in the Toluca Lake Village, which was known in the 1950s and ’60s as “restaurant row” in the Valley. “I remember a lounge that was in Toluca Lake called The China Trader. It was a Chinese restaurant and tiki bar that hosted a house jazz band,” Ramsey Jr. shares. “They didn’t have a cover charge, but had always played fabulous jazz music that you could listen to while having a cocktail or over dinner. Bobby Troup was a regular musician there.”
Another fond memory is when President Richard Nixon was in town in 1970. “We were living in a house on Toluca Road and noticed that we didn’t see anyone playing golf. We realized that Nixon had come to play golf with Jimmy Stewart, Fred MacMurray and Bob Hope,” he recalls. “My father took us to Lakeside; there were only 20 people at the front of the bar — 10 of whom were men in dark suits, sunglasses and wore lapel pins. After the 18th hole, the crew came back and, in the commotion, I was nudged to the side by Hope. My father joked that maybe Nixon was in a rush to get to the bathroom.”
While other parts of the Valley have grown and changed over time, Ramsey Jr. notes that Toluca Lake still retains its small-town feel. “The community is pretty much the same in a lot of ways; it is still a strong-willed and caring community,” he says. “Although the cost of housing has gone up significantly in Los Angeles, the nature of the people of Toluca Lake has remained the same. The Village and Toluca Lake community have endured.”
Continuing a Legacy
Ramsey Sr. resided in Toluca Lake until 1995, when he was 72 years old. At the time, he was semi-retired and would still go into the Ramsey-Shilling office several days a week — a testament to his dedication to the neighborhood and his desire to help it grow. He remained actively involved in his other business and civic pursuits until his death in October 2015 at the age of 92.
“My family still hopes to continue our involvement in the community, as we have always been a strong element and staple of the Toluca Lake community,” Ramsey Jr. says. “We hope that the people of Toluca Lake will continue to recognize the Ramsey name as synonymous with Toluca Lake and its historical background and foundation.”