The Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council's 2026 work plan says the community "will be 60 years old this September." September has come and gone without a public celebration on the calendar. A longtime resident's account in The Acorn points to a later birthday anyway. The first tract was built in late 1966, and "one, maybe two families" moved in during late December of that year, with most arriving in the first half of 1967.
So the first family's 60th falls around the holidays, during the same week the neighborhood's decorated-vehicle parade has been rolling through local streets. Before December arrives, though, the places that shaped that first winter are each changing in their own way. They are the road in, the trip for groceries, and the creek running through the middle of town.
Sixty years by whose calendar
Oak Park sits on what was ranchland in the 1940s and '50s, owned by Jim and Marian Jordan, the radio stars behind "Fibber McGee and Molly." Builder Louis Boyar's Metropolitan Development Corp. acquired the land and started building homes. According to Ventura County's area plan, the first 600 homes went up in the mid-1960s. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2006 that prices started at $23,695 when the homes first went on the market in 1966.
The name came later than most people assume. An Acorn editor's note says one of the earliest families bought on Kanan Road in 1965 and moved in during 1966, when the neighborhood "was known as 'Agoura.'" A student history piece in the Oak Park High School Talon says Metropolitan Development attached the "Oak Park" name to the community. No source we found explains why the developer chose it.
The MAC has a 60th-anniversary committee in place. July's draft minutes list four volunteers, Crystal Stratton, Michelle Santucci, J.L. Diaz and Israel Rodriguez, doing early concept planning, with Stratton coordinating logistics and a kickoff expected in August. The September 24 agenda included an item on acknowledging the anniversary and overseeing the committee. As of early October, no public event date or venue has been posted.
That gap still leaves time to mark the anniversary in the season when the first families actually arrived. Those families moved into a place that looked very different from the one around you today.
| Winter 1966–67 | Fall 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Getting in and out | Kanan Road was the only route, and it dead-ended in the housing tract | Median planting at the Conifer–Kanan–Tamarind entrance is scheduled for November |
| Groceries and gas | A 1.5-mile drive through cattle-grazing land to Agoura | The 33-suite Oak Park Shopping Center at Lindero Canyon and Kanan is listed for sale |
| Medea Creek | A place where kids rode bikes, by later accounts | Phase 1 of a park-district maintenance project covers about 285,000 square feet |
| Scale | About 2,400 residents in the late 1960s and '70s | A plan for as many as 20,000 homes was cut back, with hillsides and ridgetops protected |
The road that dead-ended in the tract
In the Los Angeles Times' 2006 retrospective, people who lived through the early years described Kanan Road as "only one way in and out of Oak Park," a road that "dead-ended in the housing tract." The isolation was serious enough that in 1967 county officials floated a land swap that would have handed Oak Park's 2,650 acres to Los Angeles County. Los Angeles County turned it down.
Kanan is still the spine of the community, and it is getting attention again this fall. A landscape committee report filed with the September MAC materials says planting at the Conifer–Kanan–Tamarind entrance median is scheduled for November. The committee is seeking bids on plant choices and a reduced-size plan. Drivers coming home up Kanan will see that median before almost anything else, so November is when the entrance changes.
Traffic on that same road is on the next MAC agenda. The council meets October 29 at 7 p.m. in Room G-9 at Oak Park High School. The September agenda expected a Ventura County Vision Zero presentation and an in-person update from the California Highway Patrol at that meeting. Kanan was the community's one lifeline in 1966. Sixty years later, the advisory council is still spending meeting time on it.
From no stores at all to a center on the market
The first families had a school for younger children but no shops. Groceries and gas meant a 1.5-mile drive through cattle-grazing land into Agoura. The Oak Park Shopping Center, at 604–630 Lindero Canyon Road on the southeast corner of Lindero Canyon and Kanan, didn't arrive until 1991, a quarter century after the first move-ins.
The Acorn reported on July 10, 2026, that the center is listed for sale with an asking price of $24 million. It has 74,400 square feet on 6.7 acres, CVS, Starbucks and Wells Fargo as anchors, and about 76% of the space leased. The listing details explain more about what may come next for the stores you use than the price does. Per the sales broker, eight of the 33 suites are vacant and six tenants are on month-to-month leases. About 42% of rental revenue comes from leases set to expire by 2028, which the broker presents as room for a buyer to negotiate new terms.
The Acorn did not name any incoming tenants. Even so, a new owner, eight open suites and a wave of lease renewals all within about two years add up to the biggest possible shake-up of Oak Park's main shopping stop since it opened. The MAC also listed the center's maintenance and trash as a discussion topic on its September 24 agenda.
The creek in the middle
Medea Creek got its name long before the subdivision existed. The Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District notes that medea is Spanish for "middle," so the name probably dates to the Rancho period. Former students interviewed by the Talon remembered riding bikes along it. Today the trail runs in three segments through the heart of Oak Park.
In March 2026, the park district started Phase 1 of a Medea Creek maintenance project. Crews are removing invasive vegetation, deadwood and debris from about 285,000 square feet south of Kanan, near Oak Hills Drive and Oak Park High School. The district said more phases are planned. At the July 30 MAC meeting, a district board member said work was on hold for nesting-bird season through mid-September. The district planned to reassess in early August and would restart only if environmental conditions allowed.
We haven't found a public update since then, so we can't say whether crews are back at work. If you walk that stretch near Oak Hills Drive, you're the first to see whether the project has resumed. The district's Medea Creek trail page has maps for all three segments.
Mae Boyar Park and the Community Center
The two park sites on Kanan host most of the neighborhood's seasonal gatherings. Mae Boyar Park, at 130 N. Kanan Road, was where children gathered in the early years, according to residents' recollections in a 2016 Ventura County Star piece marking the 50th. It also hosts the district's spring Egg Scramble, which ran on April 4 this year. Last October, the park held a Trick-or-Treat Trail on October 25, organized by Conejo 101 and Calabasas Mommy. We haven't seen a 2026 date for the trail yet.
Up the road, the Oak Park Community Center at 1000 N. Kanan Road hosts the district's Oak Park Halloween Carnival on Saturday, October 31, from noon to 3 p.m., with games, face painting, crafts, prizes and candy, and food.
The calendar between now and the real anniversary
Here are the dates we can confirm, plus the one that lines up with the first move-ins:
- October 29, 7 p.m. The Oak Park MAC meets in Room G-9 at Oak Park High School. The Vision Zero presentation and CHP update are expected.
- October 31, noon to 3 p.m. The Halloween Carnival at the Oak Park Community Center, 1000 N. Kanan Road.
- November. Median planting at the Conifer–Kanan–Tamarind entrance.
- November 19. The MAC's November meeting, held one week earlier than its usual last-Thursday slot.
- Late December. The Oak Park Community Holiday Boat Parade and Regatta. The 25th annual parade ran December 22, 2024, starting at Oak Park High School, with Santa Claus on a bicycle leading several dozen decorated vehicles through local neighborhoods. A 2025 listing gave December 21 and described the event as neighbor-created and run by volunteers. No 2026 date has been announced.
That fifth item is the one to watch. Volunteers built the parade over a quarter century, and it falls in the same late-December window when, by that resident's account in The Acorn, the first one or two families carried boxes into homes at the end of a road that went nowhere else. If the 60th-anniversary committee sets a date, the November 19 MAC meeting is the most likely place for it to be announced.
Have a story from Oak Park's early years, or a home that has been in your family since one of those first tracts? We'd love to hear it. And when you're curious how six decades on Kanan Road add up for your own property, Shari Schiff and our team are glad to help. Request your complimentary home valuation.
