LOS ANGELES — Encino residents weren’t happy in the early 1990s about a planned shopping center at Hayvenhurst Avenue and Ventura Boulevard. They were even less happy when the developer went bankrupt after digging up the contaminated soil at the site, a former gas station, leaving behind a deep crater that filled with water.
Rick Caruso, then a real estate rookie, took over the site, derisively nicknamed “Lake Hayvenhurst,” and proceeded with a strategy he would deploy many times in the future: wooing the locals, spending lavishly to move the project forward.
He asked residents of the affluent Los Angeles community to offer suggestions for his retail center’s design and ambiance, even hiring a shuttle bus to take them to a tree farm to allow them to select varieties for the development.
