H. J. Whitley

American businessman and land developer

Whitley was born in Toronto, the seventh and youngest son of Joseph Whitley and Eleanor Johnstone. He grew up in Flint, Michigan, and attended Toronto Business College. Whitley became a naturalized citizen of the United States in the 1870s.

Whitley moved to Chicago, where he owned a hardware store and candy store. He became interested in land development, became a land agent for the Rock Island Railroad and was elected to its board of directors. He plotted and organized towns in the Cherokee Strip and in 1912 he "declined the first governorship." He orchestrated the opening of the Ocean View Tract and construction of a bank located on the corners of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland. Whitely built the Hollywood Hotel on the same Hollywood and Highland corner, with George W. Hoover as builder. Construction was completed in February 1903. The neighborhood of Whitley Heights in the Hollywood Hills originated as a residential housing development financed by Whitley. Whitley, along with Charles E. Toberman, has been called "The Father of Hollywood." The first reference to Whitley by that title was in 1905.

Whitley's last development was never finished. He bought thousands of acres and started the town of Whitley Gardens. It is about ten miles (16 km) east of Paso Robles, California. Around 1924, as Los Angeles Times columnist Lee Shippey put it:

Whitley became a Paso Robles enthusiast, after the waters had given him new strength. He bought 48,000 acres of ranch lands there and dreams of putting through one more great development project. He can't understand how fine fertile land with water on it, on a state highway and within reach of ocean winds can still be bought for around $50 an acre. It was said that Whitley had amassed "a private fortune running into the millions" but "most of this wealth dwindled in [this] one unfortunate investment at Paso Robles." Henry E. Huntington extended his Pacific Electric Railway (Red Cars) through the Valley to Owensmouth (now Canoga Park). The Suburban Home Company laid out plans for roads and the towns of Van Nuys, Reseda (Marian) and Canoga Park (Owensmouth). The rural areas were annexed into the city of Los Angeles in 1915. From about 1920 until his death, his company Whiltley Oil and Refining engaged in oil drilling in California.