Venice is named after the famous city in Italy, but is located in California. In 1905 Venice was founded by tobacco Millionaire Abbot Kinney as a beach resort town. Abbot Kinney’s intent was to create a seaside resort town like it’s namesake in Italy. Kinney had dug several miles of canals to drain the marshes for his residential area. Later in 1911 when the population grew the town changes it’s official name form Ocean Park to Venice. By 1925 the town badly need to repair its roads, water and sewage system. At that time Venice was voted to become part of the city of Los Angeles. At that point they them proceeded to make the city in their own image. They felt that they need more streets for automobiles, thus filing in a lot of the canals. As real estate prices skyrocketed in the 70’s the houses along the canals were remodeled and the home were build on the lots. Later in 1994 after 30 years of talks, Los Angeles refurbished the remaining canals for 6 million dollars. And now some of the most beautiful homes on the west side reside in Venice, CA.