Lomita Homes for Sale

Lomita homes sit on 1.9 square miles between Torrance, Harbor City and the northern edge of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. This is one of the smallest cities in Los Angeles County. The housing shows it: postwar single-family houses on modest lots, some older bungalows, a few newer townhomes, and horse-zoned parcels near the Peninsula side. Prices generally run below Torrance, and well below the Peninsula cities.

So what makes Lomita worth a closer look? Three things. It still has a working main street. It owns a railroad museum with a hundred-ton steam locomotive parked on it. And its zoning policy deliberately keeps new density on the commercial corridors instead of the residential blocks.

What kind of city is Lomita?

A deliberately small one. The W. I. Hollingsworth Company subdivided the original tract in 1907, and that tract covered roughly seven square miles. However, neighboring cities annexed most of it over the following decades. Torrance took the largest share, including the land that became Zamperini Field. By the early 1960s, Lomita had shrunk to about 1.87 square miles.

Lomita incorporated on 30 June 1964 to stop exactly that. The City records two motives: halting further annexation, and curtailing high-rise apartment development. Sixty years later, the city covers 1.9 square miles with a 2020 census population of 20,921. Most Lomita homes date from that postwar era. As a result, the low-rise character that incorporation was meant to protect still holds.

The name means “little hills” in Spanish. In the 1930s, incidentally, Lomita called itself the Celery Capital of the World.

What is the Lomita Railroad Museum?

The City of Lomita owns and runs it, and it is the most distinctive thing in town.

Irene Lewis built the museum in 1966. She donated it to the City in 1967 in memory of her husband, Martin. Together the Lewises ran a Lomita company called Little Engines, which manufactured miniature live-steam locomotives and sold them worldwide. Some of those engines are still on display. The museum describes itself as the first of its kind west of Denver.

The building is not generic depot architecture. Instead, John W. Gallareto designed and built it as a deliberate replica of the Boston and Maine Railroad’s Greenwood Station in Wakefield, Massachusetts. It sits in Irene Lewis Park.

What is on the site

• Southern Pacific locomotive No. 1765, a class M-6 Mogul that Baldwin Locomotive Works built in Philadelphia in 1902. It ran between Los Angeles and San Bernardino, worked local runs to Seal Beach, El Segundo and Torrance, and pushed as a helper engine over Soledad Canyon to Palmdale. It was decommissioned in 1958 and sat in a Terminal Island scrap yard until the City bought it. Equipped, it weighs 174,000 pounds. You can climb into the cab.
• Its “whaleback” tender, built at Southern Pacific’s Sacramento shops, holding 7,300 gallons of water.
• A 1910 Union Pacific caboose. Union Pacific refurbished it and presented it to the museum at Christmas in 1966. The bunks, stove, ice box and kerosene lamps are still inside.
• A 1949 Santa Fe all-steel caboose, which arrived in 1989 and reopened after restoration in 2016, the museum’s fiftieth year.
• A 1923 Union Oil tank car and a 1913 outside-braced wooden boxcar in the Annex Park next door.
• An 1881 velocipede hand car, built for the Maine Central Railroad by Fairbanks Morse.
• A 35-foot water tower, finished in 2001.

Inside the depot you will find scale models, photographs, paintings, cases of railroadiana, and a small shop.

Admission is free. Hours run Friday through Sunday, 10am to 5pm, at 2137 West 250th Street. Parking next door is free too. Most of the site is wheelchair accessible, though reaching the rolling stock takes a few steps. Call (310) 326-6255 first to confirm hours, or check the museum’s website.

What is on Narbonne Avenue?

Narbonne Avenue is Lomita’s commercial spine. City Hall sits at 24300 Narbonne, and the post office at 25131. In addition, the Lomita Municipal Code establishes a Downtown Commercial zone over the Narbonne core. In other words, Lomita has a formally designated downtown, which is more than several larger South Bay cities can claim.

The street takes its name from Nathaniel Andrew Narbonne, a sheep farmer who received 3,500 acres in the 1882 partition of Rancho Los Palos Verdes.

Coffee and beer

• Corridor Flow, 24614 Narbonne Avenue. A family-owned coffee shop and roasting company, with a co-working area, an event space next door, and a mobile coffee van.
• Bites and Bashes Cafe, 25600 Narbonne Avenue. A women-owned cafe and catering company serving breakfast, brunch and lunch.
• Burnin Daylight Brewing Company, 24516 Narbonne Avenue, Suite 100. A family-owned brewery, tasting room and kitchen, established in 2018.
• Project Barley Brewery and Pizzeria, 2308 Pacific Coast Highway. A brewery and taproom with a pizza kitchen and live music. Project Barley has since opened elsewhere in the South Bay, but the company calls this one the original.
• The Slip Bar and Eatery, 24503 Narbonne Avenue. A bar and eatery with 22 taps, scratch-made food and a patio, open since June 2023.

Two breweries inside 1.9 square miles is unusual. Notably, both sit in Lomita itself rather than over the line in Torrance.

Longer-standing businesses

• Hot N Tot, 2347 Pacific Coast Highway. A diner that dates itself to 1946. The City’s history page carries a 1951 photograph of it.
• Lomita Feed Store, 24403 Narbonne Avenue. A feed, tack and farm-and-garden supply store. Palos Verdes Magazine reported in June 2024 that it has run for more than a century, and that the family who bought it in 2019 are only its third owners.
• Rizzo’s Pizzeria, 24100 Narbonne Avenue. A family-run pizzeria and Italian restaurant, now in its third generation.
• Ever’s Diner, 24211 Narbonne Avenue. An American diner. It still carries Fantastic Cafe signage, and older listings use that name.
• Cream Pan, 24020 Narbonne Avenue. A Japanese-French bakery, one of three locations.
• Harry’s Oklahoma Style Smokehouse BBQ, 25501 Narbonne Avenue.
• Pacific Coast Hobbies, 1747 Pacific Coast Highway. A hobby and toy store carrying radio-control vehicles, plastic models, trains and slot cars, established in 2003.
• Sprinkles N Stuff, 25626 Narbonne Avenue. A cake and cookie decorating supply shop with a workshop studio.

Listings verified as operating on 10 September 2026. Narbonne Avenue turns over like any commercial street, and several storefronts changed hands during 2026 alone. Confirm before you make a trip.

What recurring events happen in Lomita?

• Lomita Walking Club. Second Saturday monthly, meet at 9am and walk at 9:30am. The meeting point rotates, often the Railroad Museum or Veterans Park.
• Summer Concert Series. Summer evenings, 7pm to 9pm, on the City Hall front lawn at 24300 Narbonne Avenue. Usually one in July and one in August.
• Movies Under the Stars. Summer evenings, 8:30pm to 10pm, also on the City Hall front lawn.
• A Night at the Railroad Museum. A Friday evening in June, with live music, vintage cars and equipment demonstrations.
• Halloween in the Park. Late October, evening, at Belba Field, Lomita Park, 24428 Eshelman Avenue.
• Halloween Home Decorating Contest. Entries during the first half of October, citywide.
• Tree Lighting Ceremony. First Friday in December, 5:30pm to 8pm, downtown on Narbonne Avenue.
• Santa at the Museum. A Sunday in December at the Railroad Museum.
• Holiday Home Decorating Contest. Late November through mid-December, citywide.
• Veterans Day Ceremony. November 11 at 11am, Veterans Park, 257th Street and Walnut Street.
• Lomita Book Club. Monthly, Tuesday evening, 6pm to 7pm, at the Lomita Library, 24200 Narbonne Avenue.

Details are current as of September 2026. Check with the City of Lomita before you go. One correction worth making: the Lomita Farmers Market is not running. The organizer lists it as postponed until further notice, even though several online directories still show it as active.

What should buyers know about Lomita homes?

One planning fact matters more than the rest. The City’s General Plan treats Narbonne Avenue, Pacific Coast Highway and Lomita Boulevard as its three commercial corridors. Furthermore, it channels new mixed-use density onto those corridors specifically to keep it off the adjacent residential blocks. The Downtown Commercial zone now allows mixed-use projects of four units or fewer, and at least one such project has gone up on Narbonne.

That signal cuts both ways for anyone weighing Lomita homes. Buy on or near a corridor, and you should expect more change over the next decade than the current streetscape suggests. Buy on an interior residential block, and the City’s stated policy is to send that growth elsewhere. Neither outcome is guaranteed, because general plans get amended. Still, it is a documented intention rather than a guess, and you can check it against any specific address.

Size is the other practical point. At 1.9 square miles, Lomita’s services, schools and shopping genuinely intertwine with Torrance and Harbor City next door. Most buyers treat that as a feature. A few are surprised by it. Either way, it is worth understanding before you write an offer.

Working with a Lomita agent

Lomita homes vary more block to block than the size of the city suggests. Corridor proximity, lot zoning, horse-keeping overlays near the Peninsula edge, and the condition range within the postwar housing stock all vary street to street. None of that shows up reliably in a listing photo. If you are weighing Lomita homes as a buyer or preparing to sell here, we are glad to walk a specific address with you.

Jurisdiction, zoning, overlays and school assignments change. This page was verified September 9, 2026. Confirm current status for any specific property before relying on it. General information, not legal, tax or insurance advice.

Looking in Lomita? Get in touch — send us the address and we will confirm the jurisdiction and the parcel-level checks before you write.