ENGL 337 final project • By: Atrin Molanorouzi

Westlake Lake: Paradise by Design

A first look at how a familiar, peaceful, manmade lake in Westlake Village is connected to larger systems of design, drought, and environmental pressure.

Westlake Village, California

1 • Place

The lake as part of everyday life

The place I’m focusing on for this project is Westlake Lake in Westlake Village, California. Westlake is a manmade lake that I live less than two minutes from, so it’s part of my everyday life. I pass by it almost daily whether I’m driving, walking, or meeting friends nearby. The lake is surrounded by walking paths, docks, neighborhoods, restaurants, and small shops.

On the water you can see people fishing, kayaking, paddleboarding, and taking out small boats. Families eat outside by the lake and couples walk along the path at sunset. It feels like a calm center of the community. The lake represents a certain version of Southern California living which is comfortable, clean, scenic, and relaxing.

Hand-drawn map of Westlake Lake showing the calm surface

Aerial view of Westlake Lake and surrounding homes

2 • Calm surface

What the lake seems to offer

At first glance, Westlake Lake seems simple. It looks natural, peaceful, and as if it has always been there. There is lots of greenery, ducks and turtles float near the shore, and everything feels normal. But the longer I’ve lived near it, the more I’ve started to notice that it doesn’t feel wild or accidental. It feels carefully planned and maintained. That realization led me to my central tension: calm surface vs. hidden systems.

Westlake Lake is viewed as peaceful, beautiful, and safe. It feels like a small version of California paradise built around water, sunshine, nature, and leisure. This image benefits homeowners, businesses, and visitors who enjoy the lake as a relaxing escape. The existence of the lake supports high property values and a sense of stability. The lake depicts an image of a well maintained and desirable place to live. It offers a controlled version of nature that has been shaped to fit effortlessly into suburban life.

“a kind of shorthand for the easy life” — Joan Didion, "Quiet Days in Malibu"

3 • Hidden systems

What the peaceful image hides

However, this peaceful image hides important vulnerabilities. The lake is artificial and it exists in a region where water is scarce. Southern California is known for droughts, water restrictions, and wildfire seasons. Even if those concerns aren’t visible at first glance, they are part of the larger environment. The lake depends on water management systems, infrastructure, and ongoing maintenance. Landscaping must be maintained, docks must be repaired, and water levels must be monitored. In this situation, economic knowledge seems to shape the lake more than ecological limits do. The systems that allow the lake to thrive are invisible to the people enjoying it.

Access to the lake is also shaped by economic factors. It is surrounded by private property and neighborhoods that not everyone can afford. While the walking paths, restaurants, and shops may be public, the lifestyle it represents is not equally available to all. The peaceful nature of the lake can make it easy to forget that this version of California depends on wealth, planning, and regulation. What may appear effortless from a glance is actually supported by constant work and resources.

water management infrastructure maintenance labor private property planning economic access

Water

The lake depends on water being available and managed in a region where water scarcity is a constant concern.

Labor

Landscaping, repairs, and upkeep keep the lake looking calm, clean, and stable.

Design

The lake is built into a neighborhood system of paths, homes, restaurants, and recreation.

Access

The public can enjoy parts of the space, but the lifestyle surrounding it is shaped by wealth and private property.

4 • Environmental pressure

What is changing in the larger system

The situation I looked at is California’s low snowpack and the growing risk of drought and wildfires. Right now, the state has far less snow than it normally would at this time of year and in some areas there is almost none left. Normally, snow in the Sierra Nevada acts like a storage system, slowly melting and supplying water through the spring and summer. However, the warmer temperatures this year caused more rain instead of snow, and the snow that did fall melted earlier than expected.

Because of this, even though rainfall levels were close to normal, there may not be enough water later in the year. This also increases wildfire risk since dry conditions last longer and vegetation becomes easier to burn. The main tension here is between how California’s water system is supposed to work and how it’s starting to change. The system depends on snow sticking around and melting slowly however, that process is now becoming less reliable. Reservoirs may still look full now, but the early snowmelt means there will likely be less water available later. At the same time, there’s pressure between human needs and environmental limits. Cities, farms, and communities all rely on steady water but the natural system that provides it isn’t as stable as it used to be.

Rain instead of snow
Warmer winters shift how California stores water.

Earlier melt
Snow disappears sooner than it normally would.

Less stored water
Water may be available now, but less of it lasts into the dry season.

Longer dry periods
Dry conditions increase stress on plants, animals, and landscapes.

Higher wildfire risk
The region around the lake becomes easier to read as fragile rather than stable.

$California snowpack chart enlarged$

Patchy low snowpack in California mountains

$Low snow Sierra landscape$

“The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.” — Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

5 • Reading lenses

How Didion and Carson changed the way I read the lake

Joan Didion

Joan Didion’s “Quiet Days in Malibu” helps me understand this tension more clearly. Didion writes about Malibu as a place associated with beauty and the “easy life,” yet she exposes how unstable it really is. In her writing, California paradise is something that requires consistent management and can fall apart quickly.

Using Didion as a lens changes how I see Westlake Lake. The lake begins to look less like a natural setting and more like a carefully constructed environment. The restaurants, boats, and walking paths create a sense of ease, but that ease depends on systems that are rarely acknowledged.

Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring helped me think about this situation in terms of cause and effect. Carson writes that pollution and chemicals can move through ecosystems in ways that affect many different forms of life, often with delayed consequences. While she focuses on pesticides, her idea of interconnected systems applies here as well.

The shift from snow to rain might seem like a small change, but it sets off a chain of effects such as less stored water, earlier drying, increased stress on plants and animals, and greater wildfire risk. Like Carson’s Silent Spring, the damage may not be fully visible at first. The environment may still look normal, but underlying conditions are changing in ways that could have serious consequences later.

Like Didion’s Malibu, Westlake is beautiful and vulnerable at the same time. Like Carson’s environmental thinking, it also belongs to a larger chain of effects that can be easy to miss when the surface still looks calm.

6 • Open questions

What still feels unresolved

Didion also makes me think about the idea of the imaginary. Westlake is part of the broader California imaginary that presents the state as sunny, scenic, green, abundant, and relaxed. The lake feels like a shared place that can be enjoyed by all, but it is also shaped by private property, rules, and economic barriers. The version of California it portrays is orderly, perfected, and focused on lifestyle and leisure. This causes environmental limits and social inequalities to be pushed into the background.

At the same time, the lake can’t be dismissed as fake just because it is manmade. The routine of walking around it, fishing, and enjoying a delicious lakeside meal are all incredibly meaningful experiences. One question that remains unresolved for me is whether something artificial which is heavily designed and consistently managed can still feel genuine. Can I appreciate the peace and pleasure the lake brings while also recognizing the hidden systems that sustain it?

Rather than offering a solution, my project asks viewers to look differently at a place that might otherwise seem ordinary.

What does it mean to love a place that depends on so much control and maintenance?
Can something heavily designed still feel genuine?
What happens when the conditions that support a place start to feel less stable?
How much of California’s “peaceful paradise” depends on fragile systems staying invisible?

7 • Sources

Sources

Joan Didion, “Quiet Days in Malibu”
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
Article 1: California faces first sign of a new drought
Article 2: California Drought, Wildfire Risks Grow as Snow Falls Short
Image Credits
- Section 1 aerial image — Erin and Bob Real Estate — Westlake Village
- Section 2 duck image — La Canarderie
- Section 2 restaurant image — Boccaccio’s Restaurant
- Section 2 waterfront homes image — Wall Street Journal
- Section 4 snowpack chart — Conor McLaughlin — California’s Missing Snowpack
- Section 4 declining snow image — The Guardian
- Section 4 reservoir / drought image — Los Angeles Times
- Section 4 low-snow Sierra image — CNN