Bus Service: Pacific Electric Ry. (2 lines); one from Hollywood-land through Beverly Hills to Westwood, with branch line from Beverly Hills Hotel to Wilshire Blvd. and Camden Dr.; one from Pershing Sq., Los Angeles via Beverly Blvd., Santa Monica Blvd., Canyon Dr., and Sunset Blvd. to Castellammare Beach. Los Angeles Motor Coach Co. (bus No. 82) from Pershing Sq. to Wilshire Blvd. and Beverly Dr.; transfer privileges to No. 88, N. via Beverly Dr. to Santa Monica Blvd., thence S. to Wilshire Blvd., connecting with bus No. 82 to Los Angeles. Fares 6¢ in Beverly Hills; 15¢ to Los Angeles.
Streetcars: Pacific Electric Ry. (2 lines), both from Subway Terminal Bldg., Los Angeles; one through Beverly Hills via Hollywood Junction; one via S. Hill St. and Vineyard. Fares 6¢ in Beverly Hills; 15¢ to Los Angeles.
Taxicabs: Yellow and Red Top stands at Pacific Electric Ry. Station. Fare 20¢ first ¼ mile, 10¢ each ½ mile thereafter.
Information Bureaus: Chamber of Commerce, room 210, 9437 Santa Monica Blvd.; Automobile Club of Southern California, 9344 Wilshire Blvd.
Street Numbers: Numbers N. and S. begin at Wilshire Blvd.; numbers W. on the major thoroughfares begin at San Vicente Blvd. and are continuation of Los Angeles numbers on same streets (with minor exceptions).
Traffic Regulations: Speed limit 15 m. on curves, passing schools, and at obstructed grade crossings; 20 m. in business district; 25 m. in residential district; 45 m. elsewhere. Parking in business district limited to 45 minutes between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. except Sundays and legal holidays.
Hotels, Apartment Houses: Two internationally known hotels, the Beverly-Wilshire, 9514 Wilshire Blvd., and the Beverly Hills, 1201 Sunset Blvd.; a few others at average rates. Numerous furnished and unfurnished apartments, with greater number of furnished apartments nearer Wilshire Blvd. Rentals vary with the accommodations offered. Higher-priced units in rental area W. of Beverly Dr.
Auto and Trailer Camps: Well-appointed camps on outskirts of the community.
Radio Stations: KMPC (710 kc), 9631 Wilshire Blvd.
Churches: All Saints Episcopal, 504 N. Camden Dr.; Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian, 501 N. Rodeo Dr.; Church of the Good Shepherd, Catholic, Santa Monica Blvd. and Bedford Dr.; First Church of Christ, Scientist, near Charleville Blvd. and Rexford Dr.; Beverly Vista Community, Gregory Way and Elm Dr.
Motion-Picture Houses: Beverly Hills (Warner Bros.), 9404 Wilshire Blvd.; Beverly, 206 N. Beverly Dr.; Elite, 9036 Wilshire Blvd.; Regina, 8556 Wilshire Blvd.; Wilshire, 8440 Wilshire Blvd.
Parks and Playgrounds: Roxbury, Olympic Blvd. and Roxbury Dr.; La Cienega, Gregory Way and La Cienega Blvd.; Coldwater Canyon Park, Beverly Dr. and Coldwater Canyon Rd.; Sunset, Beverly and Canyon Drs.; Reservoir, Beverly Dr. and Coldwater Canyon Alley; Beverly Gardens is a 2-mile parkway, the SW. end of which is marked by an electric fountain, at Wilshire and Santa Monica Blvds.
Sports: Tennis courts at La Cienega and Roxbury Parks; swimming pool in La Cienega Park; eight golf courses within easy reach. Miles of bridle paths in and near Beverly Hills; information and mounts, riding academy at 101 N. San Vicente Blvd.
BEVERLY HILLS (325 alt., 26,823 pop.), a quiet and spotless city, the Gold Coast of the cinema world, is an independent municipality less than five square miles in extent. It lies eight miles west of Los Angeles, into which it fits like a jagged piece in a jigsaw puzzle. Here lawns are required by law; “For Sale” signs must be no more than one foot square, and only one to a lot; none of the 28,000 uniformly-planted pines, acacias, blue-flowering jacarandas, feathery pepper or scarlet-flowering eucalyptus trees that line the thoroughfares can be removed without the consent of 51 per cent of the landowners affected, and then only with a guarantee that they will be replaced by trees of equal age; strict zoning laws forbid business buildings north of Santa Monica Boulevard, which slants southwest across the community; shops are tolerated on few streets outside a small triangle at the junction of Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards.
For two miles along the north side of Santa Monica Boulevard runs Beverly Gardens, opposite which, at Crescent Drive, is the imposing City Hall, Spanish Renaissance in design, set in landscaped grounds. South of the parkway, on the level coastal plain, are pleasant streets bordered with attractive and less elaborate houses, although the cost of many ran to five figures. From the other side of the gardens, gently curving streets extend, tendril-like, into cool shaded canyons and up the steep pitches of the Santa Monica foothills, a section of large and often lavish estates, the homes of movie stars whose meteoric careers are currently in the ascendant or at the zenith.
Although Beverly Hills is young, its site was occupied more than a century ago by the 4,500-acre Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas (gathering of the waters), also known as the Rancho San Antonio. In the early 1830’s, Señora Rita Villa, nee Valdez, granddaughter of one of the first settlers of Los Angeles and widow of another, maintained a home here and another in Los Angeles. In 1854 the rancho was sold to two Americans, Benjamin (Don Benito) Wilson and Major Henry Hancock, of the adjacent Rancho La Brea. Attempts were made to found a settlement in 1869, and again during the boom of the late 1880’s. Both failed, but in 1906, with the organization of the Rodeo Land and Water Company by Burton E. Green, of Beverly Farms, Mass., a new subdivision was laid out on the level ground between Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards and recorded as Beverly; the subdivision of Beverly Hills was laid out toward the northwest the next year. The panic of 1907-8 halted development until 1912, when the Beverly Hills Hotel was erected in the middle of a bean field. Two years later the population totaled 500, and Beverly Hills was incorporated as a municipality, governed by five nonsalaried councilmen, one of whom acted as mayor. The 1920 census revealed only 674 residents, but the movement that was to increase the population 2,500 per cent within a decade had already been instituted in 1919 when Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., purchased the hilltop site of Pickfair for $35,000. Other celebrities followed, some to build modest houses, others fired with an ambition to exceed the “magnificent” and the “stupendous,” heaping up gigantic establishments that have since become “colossal” stones around their necks. Pickfair has been offered for sale; William Powell’s house, with its elaborate gadgets, has been sold; an attempt to auction off John Barrymore’s hilltop mansion brought no acceptable bid. “The Chinese Tenement,” as Barrymore scornfully refers to it, cost the actor $448,000. “Frankly,” he said, “it was a kind of nightmare, but it might appeal to somebody—maybe some actor . . . Yep, three pools. Incredible, isn’t it? In one of them I used to keep rainbow trout . . .”
The real estate boom of the early 1920’s inspired considerable bustle and excitement, stimulated in part by the late Will Rogers, who was the city’s honorary mayor before his death in 1935, and whose daily syndicated column usually carried a “Beverly Hills” date line. “Lots are sold so quickly and often here,” he wrote in August 1923, “that they are put through escrow made out to the twelfth owner. They couldn’t possibly make a separate deed for each purchaser; besides he wouldn’t have time to read [it] in the ten minutes time he owned the lot. Your having no money don’t worry the agents, if they can just get a couple of dollars down, or an old overcoat or shotgun, or anything to act as down payment. Second-hand Fords are considered A-i collateral.”
More than 150 film stars now live in Beverly Hills, as well as such notables as Sigmund Romberg, composer; Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, the Amos ‘n Andy of radio; Grantland Rice, sports writer; Elsie Janis, former musical comedy star; and motor magnates E. L. Cord and C. W. Nash. Some reside south of Sunset Boulevard, between Hillcrest and Walden Drives, but the majority have their houses on Lexington Road, Coldwater Canyon Drive, Tower Road, and Cove Way. For the most part, the mansions are pleasantly situated and unobtrusive, although a few assault the senses and every criterion of good design. None carry neon lights emblazoning the name and fame of the occupants; rather, the eager tourist, usually feminine, chiefly young or of uncertain age, confesses sore disappointment to discover that the lives of those so glamorously portrayed in movie magazines and gossip columns are screened from view by high walls and hedges. Sightseers catch no glimpse of onyx swimming pools, sunken gardens, private golf courses, Borzoi hounds, and elegant tea and cocktail parties on terraced lawns, but they never tire of hearing the guides on the rubberneck wagons shout: “On the right, the home of Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone; also on the right, Eddie Cantor . . . Left, Charlie Chaplin . . . Left, Fred Astaire . . . The vast estate of Harold Lloyd, with its waterfall . . . Right . . . Left o . . . Right.”
The city continues to grow rapidly. Stars of screen, radio, and stage come in increasing numbers, with financiers and industrialists in their wake, to enjoy Beverly Hills’ studied charm and freedom from the smoke, clatter, and conflicts of industry. In recent years many business and professional people of comparatively modest means have come from Los Angeles and other communities to build homes here, with the result that the construction industry has been greatly stimulated locally and in all surrounding territory, but the predominant local “industry,” and one that employs thousands, remains that of servicing the manifold, sometimes bizarre, and always expensive needs of those “in the money.”
BEVERLY GARDENS is a block-wide parkway extending almost two miles along the north side of Santa Monica Blvd., from Doheny Dr. to Wilshire Blvd. A promenade runs the length of the park under sweeping elms; pergolas, ornamental fountains, flower beds, attractively planted groups of trees, rose and cacti gardens, and a lily pond grace the parkway.
1. The ELECTRIC FOUNTAIN, NW. corner Wilshire and Santa Monica Blvds., can produce more than 60 effects by changes of spray, stream, and color. A kneeling figure on a square column rising from the center of the circular reservoir symbolizes an Indian rain prayer; the frieze around the base pictures incidents in California’s early history.
2. The Roman Catholic CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD, NW corner Santa Monica Blvd. and N. Bedford Dr., Spanish Colonial in style, with heavy baroque ornamentation, has two massive buttressed towers, with low, black-roofed domes above the open arches of the belfries. Reaching half the height of the facade is an atrium, with three arched doorways, extending from tower to tower. The reinforced concrete building is covered with ivory-tinted stucco. The ivory walls, columns, and ceiling of the interior provide a striking setting for the windows of richly-hued Munich glass that lend the church much of its distinction. The sanctuary extends the full width of the nave, from which it is divided by a marble rail. Shrines with colored figures of the Virgin, angels and various saints, holding staffs that flower into clusters of candles, flank the main altar. Pulpit and altar are of white Italian marble.
The rectory is linked to the church by an arcade, with a screen of similarly designed arches enclosing the formal gardens that surround the rectory.
3. ALL SAINTS EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NW. corner Santa Monica Blvd. and N. Camden Dr., flanked by rose gardens in an expanse of lawn, authentically reproduces the design of the Christian basilicas of ancient Rome. Constructed of concrete, with walls two feet thick, the church has a rough-surfaced facade unadorned except for a line of red tile edging the low-pitched gable. Across the facade, pierced by a small stained-glass rose window, extends a shed-like atrium, with a tile roof sloping streetward. Leather-covered doors, studded with brass nails, open directly into the plain and simple nave; the brown, hand-hewn timbers of the roof are exposed. Red tiles pave both nave and sanctuary; in the semi-circular apse at the rear of the church, the altar is a flash of gold.
The CIVIC CENTER is developing between Santa Monica Boulevard, Rexford and Crescent Drives.
4. The NEW POST OFFICE, junction N. Crescent Dr. and Santa Monica Blvd., is a California-Mediterranean structure of brick and stone with red-tile roof; the two-story central unit is flanked with one-story wings at either side.
5. The CITY HALL, opposite the Post Office, dominates the Civic Center. Spanish Renaissance in style, it was designed by William J. Gage and built in 1932. From its long, balanced three-story base, a campanile rises eight stories to a finial and small gold cupola, topped with a colorful mosaic hemisphere. From the four corners of the main building project elongated wings—one story in front, two stories in the rear—with ornate window and cornice embellishments. From the Crescent Drive side a wide stairway and promenade leads between the wings through a forecourt to the classical main entrance. The building houses the municipal administrative offices, city jail, public library, and emergency hospital.
6. The FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST, 142 S. Rexford Dr., together with its Sunday School buildings, encloses three sides of an open court paved with square red tiles. The buildings have simple roof lines broken at the center by a small lantern, or fleche. The church has a high pediment supported by slender Corinthian columns; a commodious foyer leads into the 1,250-seat auditorium, with stately windows of white cathedral glass. The pews are luxurious opera chairs, upholstered in soft blue-gray plush. The auditorium is air-conditioned and lighted indirectly by hanging fixtures in delicate patterns of blue and gold.
7. The BEVERLY-WILSHIRE HOTEL, 9514 Wilshire Blvd., has been a rendezvous for wealthy tourists and cinema headliners since its opening in 1928. The U-shaped building, of concrete, with veneer of tan pressed brick, has a flat roof with a wide overhang; the facade reflects strong Italian influence in the arched openings of the first and top floors and in its low-relief baroque ornamentation.
8. The TWENTIETH CENTURY-FOX STUDIOS, 10201 W. Pico Blvd., is in 1939 the largest motion-picture studio in the country. Ivy-covered stucco walls surround the 225-acre lot, where are scattered 20 immense sound stages, one with a plant for freezing ice for winter scenes. There are also wardrobe buildings, containing habiliment for anything from a Roman tyrant to a Salvation Army general; scattered buildings, housing thousands of props; a building that once served as Tom Mix’ stables but is now the Arsenal and Sound Effects Department, with equipment for every conceivable noise from a mouse squeak to a volcano rumble; a Norman chateau for writers; and a Hall of Music with fountained patio, where many successful musical films have been made.
POINTS OF INTRERST
9. The VETERANS ADMINISTRATION FACILITY OF LOS ANGELES (visited 1:30-3 daily; tubercular wards 3-4:30 daily; psychopathic wards Sun., Tues., and Thurs. 2-4), Sepulveda and Wilshire Blvds., comprises approximately 175 buildings on 700 acres of land, most of them landscaped with lawns, trees, and flower beds. The institution, locally called the Sawtelle Soldiers’ Home, provides free hospitalization for veterans of the Civil, Spanish-American, and World Wars. The largest (1939) soldiers’ home in the country, it has facilities to care for 7,700 veterans who are disabled or in need of medical care.
Westwood Boulevard, lined with tall palms and green parkways, is the main thoroughfare of WESTWOOD VILLAGE (388 alt.), a 10-year-old town within the corporate limits of Los Angeles. It is a community resplendent with high-towered filling stations, new, dazzling-white shops under red-tile roofs, and many patios with fountains. It is a shopping center for the very prosperous Westwood and Bel-Air residential districts to the north, and for the students of the University of California at Los Angeles.
10. The TROPICAL ICE GARDENS (skating, daytime 40¢ evening 55¢, including skates), just south of the U.C.L.A. campus, at the end of Weyburn Ave., have an outdoor ice floor the year round. A gallery (occasional exhibitions; adm. 50¢ to $2) seating 8,000, and a synthetic Alpine village surround the rink.
11. The UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES, 405 Hilgard Ave., stands in extensive lawns crowning a broad terraced elevation overlooking rolling valleys, plains, and low hills. Behind, the blue-misted Santa Monica Mountains form an irregular sky line. The buildings erected since 1929 stand on grounds thicky bordered with iceplant, but lack the ivy and venerable shade trees of older institutions of learning; the grouping of these buildings has the efficiency and orderliness possible only when a full grown institution is transplanted to a new site.
An integral part of the University of California, the University of California at Los Angeles grew out of the Los Angeles State Normal School, founded in 1881. In 1919 that institution became the University of California, Southern Branch; the present name was adopted in 1927. Two years later it was moved to this campus, which had been presented by the cities of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Venice, and Beverly Hills.
With a faculty of more than 300, the university offers instruction in the humanities, the sciences, business administration, education, and agriculture to more than 7,000 graduate and undergraduate students.
The four main buildings stand on a low hilltop reached from the Hilgard Ave. entrance by way of a monumental bridge. These central buildings, in the walls and roofs of which is much terra cotta, brick, and tile, are four stories high and display the usual eclectic southern California motifs and architectural features in their decoration. Romanesque and Italian Renaissance influences are particularly apparent. Oil the north side of an esplanade is JOSIAH ROYCE HALL, housing the auditorium, classrooms, and faculty offices, and named for the philosopher who was one of the University of California’s notable graduates. With tiled gabled roofs and two massive towers flanking the triple-arched entrance, the facade of the hall to some extent resembles that of the Church of San Ambrogia in Milan. On the south side, across the walk-bordered green, is the vast LIBRARY, housing 322,000 volumes. The central unit of the large structure, which has wings and rear extensions, is crowned with an octagonal superstructure with a set-back. Royce Hall was designed by Allison and Allison, the Library by George W. Kelham. Simpler in detail and treatment are the buildings grouped east and south of Royce Hall and the Library Building: the Chemistry-Geology, the Physics-Biology, the Administration, and Education buildings. At the west end of the esplanade, a broad low brick stairway with terra-cotta balustrades descends to the Men’s and Women’s Gymnasiums, and their swimming pools. Set apart from the main group, southwest of the Education Building is KERCKHOFF HALL, social center for students and faculty, where the traditional Tudor University note is introduced with a graceful turreted tower and leaded windows. Overlooking the campus from the north is the President’s residence. Near the south entrance on Westwood Blvd. is the MECHANIC ARTS BUILDING and shops.
12. The MUNICIPAL PARK, Sunset Blvd. and Beverly and Canon Drs., has wide and carefully kept lawns, stately palms, and a central fountain that effectively camouflage the great 8,000,000-gallon water tank beneath, the city’s reservoir.
13. The BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL, 1201 Sunset Blvd., set back on a gentle hillside on 10 acres of ornamental shrubbery, lofty fan palms, and spreading date trees, is a diffuse, four-story concrete and stucco structure, with tile roofs and arched entrances reminiscent of the early California missions. Windows are grouped in twos and threes; a spacious second-story balcony overlooks the swimming pool; 20 bungalows are scattered about the grounds.
