Hollywood Hills

A history of Beverly Hills from Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas to the present, with its postwar modern architecture, Trousdale Estates, and the fight over preservation that followed the demolitions of 2010 and 2011

Beverly Hills is a city of about 34,000 residents in western Los Angeles County, incorporated in 1914 (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-a). It began as a Mexican cattle rancho, passed through a series of failed farming and real estate ventures, and was laid out in 1907 as a planned residential town by a company that had drilled for oil and found water. Its reputation came from the film industry, which began settling there in the 1920s. Its postwar architecture includes a Frank Lloyd Wright shopping arcade on Rodeo Drive, Welton Becket’s Beverly Hilton, Richard Neutra’s largest house in Southern California, a Googie gas station designed for Los Angeles International Airport, and Trousdale Estates, which the Los Angeles Conservancy describes as the region’s largest and most complete grouping of custom mid-century modern houses by master architects (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-d). The loss of modern buildings in 2010 and 2011 led the city to adopt its first historic preservation ordinance in 2012, and the council weakened that ordinance three years later (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-a).

The Rancho

The Tongva, the area’s original inhabitants, valued the land as a watered place in a dry basin, and the Portolà expedition translated their name for it into Spanish as El Rodeo de las Aguas, the gathering of the waters (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.). The name refers to the streams that drained from Coldwater and Benedict Canyons (Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas, 2026). Smallpox and other diseases brought by Europeans killed most of the Tongva (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.).

In 1838 the Mexican governor granted the roughly 4,500-acre Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas to María Rita Valdez Villa, the Afro-Mexican widow of a Spanish soldier and a granddaughter of original settlers of the Pueblo de Los Angeles (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.; Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas, 2026). She raised cattle and horses and built her adobe at what is now Sunset Boulevard and Alpine Drive. Her livestock grazed freely and were gathered once a year at a roundup near today’s Pico and Robertson Boulevards (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.). After surviving an attack on the rancho in 1852, she sold the land in 1854 to Henry Hancock and Benjamin Davis Wilson. Drought soon killed their livestock (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.).

Failed Ventures

By 1868, the land belonged to Edward Preuss, who planned a colony of German immigrant farmers called Santa Maria and planted lima beans to pay his taxes. Another drought ended the plan (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.). In the early 1880s, Henry Hammel and Charles Denker bought the land and proposed a North African-themed subdivision called Morocco, which the collapse of the regional real estate boom in 1888 ended (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.).

In 1900, a group of investors led by Burton E. Green bought the bean fields for the Amalgamated Oil Company. Their wells produced no oil but struck enough water to support a town, and in 1906 the partners reorganized as the Rodeo Land and Water Company. Green and his wife named the property Beverly Hills after Beverly Farms, Massachusetts (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.).

The Planned Town

In 1907, the company hired the landscape architect Wilbur D. Cook, who was influenced by Frederick Law Olmsted, to lay out the town (City of Beverly Hills, n.d.). Cook drew curving, tree-lined streets that followed the hills, with larger lots north of Santa Monica Boulevard, smaller lots to the south, and a triangular business district between them, the area now called the Golden Triangle. He set aside land for parks, four elementary schools, and a high school, and laid out a three-block green strip called Santa Monica Park (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.; City of Beverly Hills, n.d.). The first streets, Rodeo, Cañon, Crescent, Carmelita, Elevado, and Lomitas, were built in 1907 (City of Beverly Hills, n.d.). Deed restrictions barred Black and Jewish buyers. They remained in force until the 1940s, when a lawsuit brought by Hattie McDaniel, Ethel Waters, and other Black residents helped overturn them (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.).

The first house was finished in 1907, but lots sold slowly. To attract buyers, Green built the Beverly Hills Hotel, designed by Elmer Grey, on the site where the waters had gathered. It opened in 1912 and served residents as a city hall, community center, theater, and church, reached by a small rail line called the Dinky (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.; Beverly Hills Register of Historic Properties, 2026). The town incorporated as a city in 1914 (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.).

The Film Colony

Growth began when Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks bought land on Summit Drive and built Pickfair. Film stars, directors, and producers followed (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.). The Los Angeles Speedway opened in 1919 across most of the city’s southwest quarter, drawing auto races second in importance only to Indianapolis. It lasted until the mid-1920s, and the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, built in 1928, stood on its former grounds (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.). In 1928 the oil magnate Edward L. Doheny completed Greystone, a 55-room mansion designed by Gordon Kaufmann, as a gift for his son (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.; Beverly Hills Register of Historic Properties, 2026).

Water shortages returned with the growth. In 1923, voters rejected annexation to Los Angeles, which would have secured a water supply, after opposition led by Pickford, who feared the loss of the town’s identity (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.). The humorist Will Rogers served as honorary mayor, and the park across Sunset Boulevard from the hotel was renamed for him after his death (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.). The 1930s produced the Spanish Renaissance City Hall of 1932, by Koerner and Gage, and the Beverly Hills Post Office of 1933, by Ralph Carlin Flewelling (Beverly Hills Register of Historic Properties, 2026). Santa Monica Park was extended along the whole north side of Santa Monica Boulevard and renamed Beverly Gardens Park (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.). The residential architecture of these decades was largely period revival, including the estates of Harry Cohn, Samuel Goldwyn, and David O. Selznick and Wallace Neff’s McGilvray House of 1927 (Beverly Hills Register of Historic Properties, 2026).

The Postwar Commercial City

After the Second World War, the city grew rapidly, and the Golden Triangle, with Rodeo Drive at its center, drew international retailers (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.). Modern office buildings and stores went up through the 1950s and 1960s along Wilshire Boulevard and within the triangle (Ostashay, 2013).

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Anderton Court Shops at 332 North Rodeo Drive was his last building in the Los Angeles area. The philanthropist Nina Anderton hired Wright in 1951, and the building was designed in 1952 and completed in 1954 (Anderton Court Shops, 2026; Spectra Company, n.d.). It is a three-story building fifty feet wide, with walls of gunite sprayed over a steel frame and plastered. Its storefronts form an inverted V to give each shop more window area, and an angular ramp climbs around a central light well to shops set half a level apart, beneath a lighted spire (Clio, n.d.). It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004, and in 2024 it was restored as a Givenchy flagship (Anderton Court Shops, 2026).

Conrad Hilton opened the Beverly Hilton, designed by Welton Becket and built by the Del E. Webb Construction Company, on August 12, 1955, on an 8.9-acre site at Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards. Vice President Richard Nixon raised the flag at the opening ceremonies (The Beverly Hilton, 2026). Across Santa Monica Boulevard, William Pereira and Associates designed Hilton’s corporate headquarters at 9990 Santa Monica Boulevard. Permits were issued on July 20, 1955, and the building was occupied in 1957. Pereira’s office designed it as a modern building with the character of an Italian villa, set in a sunken garden behind a ten-foot wall of black concrete block (Ostashay, 2013). Pereira’s firm also designed Gibraltar Square at 9101 Wilshire Boulevard in 1959. Millard Sheets designed the Ahmanson Bank and Trust Building at 9145 Wilshire Boulevard in 1959, and Sidney Eisenshtat designed the Wilshire-Rexford Office Building at 9300 Wilshire Boulevard in 1963. Paul R. Williams designed the MCA headquarters complex on North Crescent Drive in phases from 1938 to 1969 (Beverly Hills Register of Historic Properties, 2026).

The best-known of these buildings is a gas station. In 1960, Gin Wong of Pereira and Associates designed a service station for Los Angeles International Airport to complement the Theme Building. When that plan fell through, Union Oil used the design for a station at Crescent Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard, which opened in 1965 (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-e). Its curved canopy rises from two supports over the pumps and lifts at the corners, edged with a frieze of square tiles and lit from below by rows of fluorescent tubes that follow the curve (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-e). The city designated it a landmark in 2018 (Beverly Hills Register of Historic Properties, 2026).

Modern Houses

Modern houses appeared in the city from about 1950. Victor Gruen designed the Rosenstiel Residence at 1210 Coldwater Canyon in 1950 (Beverly Hills Register of Historic Properties, 2026). John Lautner designed the Shusett House in 1950, demolished in 2010, and the Nouard Gootgeld House at 1167 Summit Drive in 1952, since altered beyond recognition (List of works by John Lautner, 2026). John Elgin Woolf, the architect most associated with Hollywood Regency, designed the Vance Residence at 805 Hillcrest Road in 1954. Jules G. Salkin’s apartment building at 328 South Rexford Drive of 1956 represents the modern multifamily housing of the flats, and Lloyd Wright designed the Karasik House at 436 Spalding Drive in 1960 (Beverly Hills Register of Historic Properties, 2026).

The most important house of the period is the Kronish House at 9439 Sunset Boulevard. The developer Herbert Kronish and his wife, Hazel, bought the site from Shirley Temple in the early 1950s and commissioned Neutra, who completed the house in 1954 (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-c). It is a one-story International Style house on a pinwheel plan, with three wings radiating from a glass-enclosed garden, at the end of a long driveway on a two-acre lot. At nearly 7,000 square feet, it is Neutra’s largest residential design in Southern California and possibly in North America. Neutra built three houses in Beverly Hills; one was demolished and another completely altered, which leaves the Kronish House as the only intact example (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-c).

Lautner returned in 1971 with the Familian House at 1011 Cove Way, designed for Gary and Liz Familian. Rough-cut stone anchors the house to the ground; a band of clerestory windows separates the stone walls from a low-pitched roof so the roof appears to float; and a massive stone pyramid screens the entry from the street. Lautner designed an addition for later owners in 1987 (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-b). Buff and Hensman’s Gindi-Birnkrant House at 604 Alpine Drive, completed in 1979, is the latest modern house on the city’s register (Beverly Hills Register of Historic Properties, 2026).

Trousdale Estates

In 1954 the developer Paul Trousdale bought the Doheny ranch around Greystone from Lucy Smith Doheny Battson, widow of Edward L. Doheny Jr. The industrialist Henry Crown bought the mansion itself and later sought to demolish it and subdivide its grounds, a plan stopped by a public purchase in 1965 (Trousdale Estates, 2026). Greystone is now owned by the City of Beverly Hills and operated as a park and event venue (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.). Trousdale persuaded the City Council to annex his tract, which enlarged the city in the hills above its east side, and named the development for himself (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.; Trousdale Estates, 2026). He built thousands of houses across the country, and this was the only subdivision to bear his name (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-d). The 410-acre tract was divided into roughly 530 lots (Trousdale Estates, 2026) and marketed with the slogan “Life Above It All” (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-d).

Buyers commissioned their own architects under an architectural committee led by the supervising architect Allen Siple (Trousdale Estates, 2026). The committee required every house to contain at least 3,000 square feet and remain one story, which kept views open across the tract (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-d). Construction began in 1954 and continued into the early 1970s. The Conservancy lists Richard Dorman, Wallace Neff, Paul R. Williams, Cliff May, A. Quincy Jones, and Lloyd Wright among the architects, and other accounts add Harold Levitt, Edward H. Fickett, Rex Lotery, and Buff and Hensman (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-d; Pisaro, 2026; Trousdale Estates, 2026). The houses span Hollywood Regency, California Ranch, and Mid-Century Modern (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-d).

Residents have included Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Curtis, Ray Charles, Howard Hughes, and Groucho Marx. Richard Nixon lived there in 1962 and 1963, and the Los Angeles Times reported that he paid $90,000 for a house worth $300,000 because the developers believed his name would add prestige (Trousdale Estates, 2026). By 1981, some owners had remodeled houses in ways that blocked neighbors’ views, and in 1987 the homeowners association and the city adopted the Trousdale Ordinance, which the city enforces along with protections against view-blocking trees (Trousdale Estates, 2026). The ordinance caps structures at fourteen feet and bars raising building pads (Pisaro, 2026). In 2019, the average sale price in the tract exceeded $11 million, and that July the Uber co-founder Garrett Camp paid $72.5 million for an 11,000-square-foot house there (Trousdale Estates, 2026).

Demolition and the 2012 Ordinance

Until 2012, a demolition permit in Beverly Hills could be issued over the counter with no discretionary review, regardless of a building’s significance (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-c). The city had recently issued permits to demolish Lautner’s Shusett House and Sidney Eisenshtat’s Friars Club Building of 1961, both of which were lost (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-a, n.d.-c).

The Kronish House brought the issue to a head. After years of vacancy, it sold at a foreclosure auction in January 2011 for $5.8 million to Soda Partners, which relisted it in April for nearly $14 million and marketed it first as a teardown. In July, the owner applied for a permit to cap the sewer line, which the Conservancy read as preparation to clear the site (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-c). The Conservancy, its Modern Committee, and Neutra’s son, the architect Dion Neutra, led a campaign that produced nearly 600 letters and emails to the city. At the City Council meeting of August 2, 2011, the owner’s representative agreed to postpone demolition until October 10, and in October, a buyer committed to restoration bought the house (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-c). Marmol Radziner removed later alterations, seismically upgraded the structure, and restored it. The city designated it a landmark on April 7, 2015, and the Conservancy gave the project a Preservation Award in 2016 (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-c).

In 2012, the city adopted a historic preservation ordinance, created a Cultural Heritage Commission, hired a preservation planner, and implemented the Mills Act tax incentive (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-a). The Beverly Hills Hotel became Landmark No. 1 (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.). In 2014, the city’s centennial year, the Conservancy gave it an A+ on its preservation report card (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-a).

The 2015 Amendments

Members of the Planning Commission began proposing amendments in late 2013, and on July 21, 2015, the City Council adopted a revised ordinance by a vote of 3 to 1 (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-a). Under the amended rules, single-family houses cannot be included in local historic districts, the planning director can issue a certificate of ineligibility at the director’s sole discretion, and properties nominated without owner consent must meet criteria the Conservancy called exceedingly high. The revisions made the city ineligible for Certified Local Government status, and a pending application was withdrawn. The Conservancy lowered the city’s grade to C− (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.-a).

The register shows the effect. Forty-two properties were designated between 2012 and 2018, and three between 2019 and 2025, for a total of 45 (Beverly Hills Register of Historic Properties, 2026). The modern buildings on the register are Anderton Court, the Karasik House, the Hilton Office Building, the Ahmanson Bank building, the Kronish House, Gibraltar Square, the Rosenstiel Residence, the Salkin apartments, the Vance Residence, the Union 76 station, the Gindi-Birnkrant House, the Wilshire-Rexford building, and the MCA/Litton complex (Beverly Hills Register of Historic Properties, 2026).

After Modernism

Competition from regional shopping malls led the city to reinforce its retail district. Two Rodeo, with its pedestrian street Via Rodeo, opened in 1989. In the 1990s the city seismically strengthened City Hall and built an expanded civic center with a new fire station, library, and police headquarters, and in 1996 the Paley Center for Media opened a West Coast building by Richard Meier at Beverly Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.). The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts later reused the 1933 post office, keeping its Depression-era murals by Charles Kassler Jr. in the lobby and adding the 500-seat Goldsmith Theatre (Beverly Hills Historical Society, n.d.).

Nearby Landmarks Outside the City

Several modern houses often associated with Beverly Hills stand outside its limits and are not subject to its preservation rules. Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein Residence of 1963 is in the Beverly Crest neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles (Sheats–Goldstein Residence, 2026). Pierre Koenig’s Stahl House, Case Study House #22, completed in 1960, is in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles (Stahl House, 2026). Lautner’s Harvey House, completed in 1950, is also in Los Angeles (List of works by John Lautner, 2026).

References

Anderton Court Shops. (2026). In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 25, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderton_Court_Shops

Beverly Hills Historical Society. (n.d.). Beverly Hills history. https://www.beverlyhillshistoricalsociety.org/history

Beverly Hills Register of Historic Properties. (2026). In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 25, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Hills_Register_of_Historic_Properties

City of Beverly Hills. (n.d.). History of Beverly Hills. https://www.beverlyhills.org/165/History-of-Beverly-Hills

Clio. (n.d.). Anderton Court Shops. https://theclio.com/tour/2517/7/reverse

List of works by John Lautner. (2026). In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 25, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_John_Lautner

Los Angeles Conservancy. (n.d.-a). Beverly Hills. https://www.laconservancy.org/save-places/community-preservation/beverly-hills/

Los Angeles Conservancy. (n.d.-b). Familian House. https://www.laconservancy.org/learn/historic-places/familian-house/

Los Angeles Conservancy. (n.d.-c). Kronish House. https://www.laconservancy.org/learn/historic-places/kronish-house/

Los Angeles Conservancy. (n.d.-d). Trousdale Estates. https://www.laconservancy.org/learn/historic-places/trousdale-estates/

Los Angeles Conservancy. (n.d.-e). Union 76 gas station. https://www.laconservancy.org/learn/historic-places/union-76-gas-station/

Ostashay, J. (2013). City landmark assessment and evaluation report: Hilton Office Building. City of Beverly Hills. https://www.beverlyhills.org/DocumentCenter/View/7830/No-10---9990-Santa-Monica-Blvd---Hilton-Office-Building---William-Pereira--Associates---1955

Pisaro, D. (2026). Trousdale Estates Beverly Hills: Architecture and 2026 prices. Coastline 840. https://www.debbiepisaro.com/blog/trousdale-estates-beverly-hills

Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas. (2026). In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 25, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancho_Rodeo_de_las_Aguas

Sheats–Goldstein Residence. (2026). In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 25, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheats%E2%80%93Goldstein_Residence

Spectra Company. (n.d.). Givenchy (Anderton Court). https://spectracompany.com/project/givenchy/

Stahl House. (2026). In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 25, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stahl_House

The Beverly Hilton. (2026). In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 25, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beverly_Hilton

Trousdale Estates. (2026). In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 25, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trousdale_Estates