Why Laurel Canyon's Country Store Is Headed to City Hall
At the northeast corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Kirkwood Drive, a two-story brick building faces south toward the flats. A hand-painted "Laurel Canyon" sign runs just below the parapet, and a clock sits between two striped bands. Below that is a Coca-Cola sign for the Canyon Country Store, then a cloth awning that reads "Canyon Country Store / The Store." This Thursday, October 15, at 9 a.m., the Cultural Heritage Commission will decide whether to consider that façade, and the building behind it, for designation as a Historic-Cultural Monument.
The Los Angeles Conservancy filed the nomination. City staff recommend that commissioners take the property under consideration, which starts a formal review. It does not grant designation. The nomination came out of a year of uncertainty about who runs the store. Landmark status deals with something narrower, the building's walls, signs and storefronts. Both matter, and following the case means keeping them separate.
The staff report, filed as case CHC-2026-4816-HCM, describes the building feature by feature. Some of what it lists is easy to miss even on a daily coffee stop:
The building has changed over the years, and the report lists those changes too. The original storefront was replaced in 1937 and the surface parking lot on the west side went in during 1951. The unreinforced masonry walls were seismically retrofitted between 1984 and 1991, and the deli and café were added to the store in 1991. Even with those changes, SurveyLA, the citywide historic resources survey, had already rated the property individually eligible for designation as "an excellent and rare example of a 1920s neighborhood market in the Hollywood Hills."
The building went up in 1924, the year after Laurel Canyon was annexed to Los Angeles. It replaced the wooden Laurel Tavern, which had burned in 1923. From 1925 to 1929 its storefronts were offices for the companies selling lots in the new subdivision around it. City directories from 1926 list the Canyon Realty Co. at the address. Many canyon houses sit on lots that were first sold from this corner.
After the lots sold, the building took on the tenants the neighborhood needed. A market was there by 1932. Over the years it also held a drug store and a dry cleaner, and for more than 30 years starting in 1937 it housed the offices of the Canyon Crier, the neighborhood paper. The Canyon Country Store itself has been at 2108 N. Laurel Canyon Boulevard since at least 1956. Today the lower level is home to Pace, which lists its address as 2100 Laurel Canyon Boulevard and is open for dinner seven days a week.
None of these tenants stayed for good, but the building has stayed in commercial use for a century. That is the history the nomination asks the city to protect.
The 1960s and early 1970s gave the building the reputation most people know. Laurel Canyon was close to the Whisky a Go Go on Sunset and the Troubadour on Santa Monica Boulevard, and young musicians moved into its rustic hillside houses. The staff report names Joni Mitchell, Carole King, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Cass Elliot, Frank Zappa, Jackson Browne and Jim Morrison among the many who lived in or passed through the canyon.
The nomination argues that the houses, studios and clubs were not public places for everyday life, and the store was. It stood at the canyon's main intersection, and its parking lot and deck worked as an informal gathering place at almost any hour. Citing Michael Walker's 2006 book Laurel Canyon, the application quotes a description of the store as "the lobby of the Laurel Canyon hotel." In 1968 the Doors released "Love Street," which Morrison wrote after watching the store from the house on Rothdell Trail he shared with Pamela Courson. The same year, Jackie DeShannon appeared in front of the store on the cover of her 1968 album Laurel Canyon, whose title song mentions the store by name. The nomination also quotes a 1969 Toronto Daily Star report that described the parking lot as "alive with brightly dressed, flowing-haired young people most hours of the day or night."
That history explains why the nomination rests on more than the 1924 brickwork. SurveyLA found the property eligible as an example of a 1920s market. It also found it eligible for its commercial identity as the Canyon Country Store and for its role in the folk and rock scene. Much of the case for significance depends on how the building was used.
The Conservancy says it partnered with local advocates on the nomination after "community members raised concerns about the Canyon Country Store's ownership transition and future." Those concerns became public early this year.
On February 6, 2026, SFGATE reported that the business had been put up for sale. A notice of application to change ownership of the market's alcohol license was posted beside the juice and coffee bar outside. SFGATE also relayed what longtime co-owner Tommy Bina told Vintage Los Angeles: he had not known about the notice and was seeking legal counsel. The paper described him as a shareholder and co-owner of the business, not of the land under it.
On April 22, WEHOonline reported a Facebook statement from Bina, who has run the store since 1982, in which he wrote that new owners had taken over and that he was "fighting for the Canyon Store." These are his statements as reported, and the research for this piece found no public account from the other parties. The city staff report lists the owner as Canyon Country Corp. As of the Conservancy's October 1 update, the store is still open as a neighborhood market and gathering place.
The Director of Planning ruled the application complete on September 16, 2026. If commissioners take the property under consideration on Thursday, the city's published process sets the pace from there:
The Conservancy is asking people who support the nomination to email comments to [email protected] by Wednesday, October 14. The meeting is in Room 1010 of City Hall at 200 N. Spring Street, and the staff report says teleconference login details will be on the agenda.
If the building is designated, the Cultural Heritage Commission reviews proposed exterior and interior alterations under the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation. City preservation staff review work proposals before permits are issued. That review would cover the painted "Laurel Canyon" sign, the clock and the striped bands, the wrought iron gates, the brick, and the aisle signs inside.
The Office of Historic Resources materials reviewed for this piece don't say that designation requires a particular business to operate in the building or changes its permitted uses. The process deals with the physical building. Who stocks the shelves, who works the register and how the deck is used are separate questions from the one on Thursday's agenda.
That is a real limit, because so much of the nomination's argument comes from use. The building is significant partly because it has been a market since the 1930s and a gathering place since the 1960s. The Conservancy describes its goal as recognizing and protecting the store's "cultural and community significance" so that the place "endures for generations to come." Designation could protect the building where that history happened. Whether the store stays a gathering place depends on whoever runs it.
For a century, through realty offices, the Canyon Crier, a drug store, a dry cleaner and a market, the building has outlasted every tenant. On Thursday the city starts deciding whether that building, at Laurel Canyon and Kirkwood, deserves formal protection.
At Nancy Ellin Realty Group, we follow cases like this one closely because the history of the canyon's streets is part of what we offer the people we represent there. If you live in Laurel Canyon or elsewhere in the Hollywood Hills and want a careful conversation about how landmark reviews and nearby history affect your corner of the hills, we would welcome the chance to talk. Request a Private Consultation.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
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