California Highways:
www.cahighways.org

This route was defined in 1974.

The original Kanan Road was named after the Waring family, which settled Agoura in the 1860s and provided land for the road. The land surrounding what would become Kanan Road was agricultural, and restaurateur Art Whizin developed the area in the 1950s and 1960s. Brothers Lou and Mark Boyar were veteran developers of the kind of manufactured communities that sprung up after World War II. They masterminded what remains the largest city in the world ever created by a single developer when they purchased 3,375 acres of bean farmland south of downtown Los Angeles to create the City of Lakewood. By 1950 there were 17,500 homes there. Following the success of Lakewood, the Boyar brothers founded the Metropolitan Development Corporation. As land in Los Angeles became more scarce, they concentrated their efforts on developments in the San Fernando Valley such as Valley Park, Valley Park Highlands and the Fallbrook Square Shopping Center. The Boyars developed Kanan Road in 1964 as a pathway from the Santa Monica Mountains, crossing US 101 two miles north of the freeway into a slow-starting development of model homes called Oak Park in southeastern Ventura County, bordered on the west by Thousand Oaks and to the south by Agoura Hills and Westlake Village. When a 1970 brush fire left the 2,600-acre McGee ranch just north of Agoura in embers, the Boyars pounced on the deal and expanded the new community. Kanan-Dume Road was completed in 1974, but not before rumblings in the U.S. Congress. In the early 1960s, Art Whizin and other Agoura locals pushed for a Valley-to-the-Sea highway from the Ventura Freeway for faster access to the beaches and to ease expected freeway congestion, but were rebuffed. In 1973, Congressman Barry Goldwater, Jr. said that a master plan for the Santa Monica Mountains was needed desperately, as he feared the completion of Kanan-Dume Road would be “the single biggest boon to indiscriminate use of the mountains for years” and that it would “open up mass areas for development.” He and others pushed for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which prevented the extensive development he feared.
(Source: Malibu Times, 6/20/2012)

• Southern California Regional Rocks and Roads (Michael Ballard): N9 – Kanan Dume Road

Total mileage: 12.54 mi.

The SAFETEA-LU act, enacted in August 2005 as the reauthorization of TEA-21, provided the following expenditures on or near this route:

• High Priority Project #2333: Construct and repair lining in/out tunnels on Kanan, Kanan Dume, and Malibu Canyon Roads between Route 1 and US 101. $2,400,000.
• High Priority Project #3099: Modify and reconfigure Kanan Road interchange along US 101 in Agoura Hills. $4,000,000.

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