Los Angeles County · Land Surveying
Monrovia, incorporated in 1887 as one of Los Angeles County's first cities, keeps its history visible: Craftsman streets above an Old Town core on Myrtle Avenue, foothill neighborhoods climbing toward a 1,400-acre wilderness preserve. Old records and real terrain meet here.
Whether the record dates to the 1880s or the 1980s, tell us the project and we will scope from it. Call (213) 787-3342 to talk it through.
The Gem City of the Foothills was platted during the 1880s land boom, which makes its townsite records among the oldest a surveyor works with in this county. Above the original grid, Monrovia's celebrated stock of Craftsman bungalows and period-revival homes spread through the early twentieth century, and the hillside streets pushed north until residents voted in 2000 to preserve the upper slopes permanently.
That layered growth defines the survey work: century-plus records under the flats, terrain against the preserve, and a community that restores rather than replaces its older homes. Projects here tend to be careful ones — restorations, additions, walls — and they need boundary and setback facts precise enough to satisfy both the city and the craftsmanship.
A sampling of the Monrovia situations we hear about:
Retracement on the original grid starts from the 1880s plats and works forward through every recorded survey since. Original monuments from that era are rare survivors, so corners are frequently re-established from block-wide evidence — and each corner we restore gets documented with Los Angeles County, leaving the record stronger than we found it.
The foothill streets trade record age for terrain. Lots step up slopes, walls hold cut and fill, and the preserve forms a long public edge along the city's north side. Projects there commonly pair boundary work with topographic or hillside mapping so designs and grading reviews rest on measured ground. What any given project requires is the city's determination; we produce the measurements it runs on.
Six services handle most Monrovia requests — three resolve and preserve lines, two map terrain, one serves compact-lot conversions:
A few survive — pipes and stones from the boom era do turn up — but most have been lost to street, sewer, and driveway work. Their absence does not endanger your boundary: the recorded geometry controls, and corners are re-established from the surviving evidence across the block, then documented so they are never lost the same way again.
Like any boundary with a public owner: from the recorded maps and deeds that created the preserve parcels, reconciled with the evidence on the ground. Owners along the preserve line often want it marked clearly — it defines where private improvements must stop, and a visible line prevents well-meaning encroachment into protected land.
Yes. We locate the front line precisely and measure the porch footprint against it, giving your designer the exact encroachment picture — inches, not impressions. How the city treats an existing nonconforming porch in a restoration is a planning question, but every path through it starts with the measured condition.
Commercial purchases in Old Town typically call for an ALTA/NSPS survey or a detailed boundary survey showing how each shared wall sits relative to the line — old commercial blocks grew up wall to wall, and title needs the physical facts. We scope from the title commitment so the survey answers the exceptions that matter.
Absolutely — chains and links were the standard units of nineteenth-century surveying, and converting them is routine (a chain is sixty-six feet; a link is a hundredth of that). Old-unit deeds usually retrace cleanly once the description is mapped against the plat. The units are quaint; the boundary they describe is as real as any.
Monrovia's old records reward preparation — these help us scope accurately:
We trace the record from the townsite era forward, confirm scope with you, then field the work and deliver. The step-by-step lives on our how it works page.
We serve property throughout Monrovia and across Los Angeles County — request a survey quote for any parcel in the area.
Survey scope and deliverables depend on title records, site conditions, and what your project requires. Call (213) 787-3342 to discuss the property and the survey you need.
Call (213) 787-3342 with the parcel and the plan, and Southern California Land Surveyors will scope the record research, fieldwork, and mapping your project needs.