Beverly Hills
Drilling here in 1900 found water instead of oil, so the company laid out a garden suburb in 1907 with curving streets against the hillsides; it sold slowly until Fairbanks and Pickford built Pickfair in 1919. In 1923 the residents — those two among them — campaigned successfully against annexation by Los Angeles, which is why the city has its own police, schools and zoning.
Why go
Rodeo Drive — three blocks that became the global shorthand for luxury retail. A city inside Los Angeles that is not Los Angeles — its own police, schools and zoning since 1914. Palm-lined residential streets — the flats and the hills, designed as a garden suburb in 1907. Museums and gardens — the Greystone estate, the Annenberg, and the Getty ten minutes west.
The character
Beverly Hills was a failed oil field. Drilling in 1900 found water instead, and the Rodeo Land and Water Company laid out a garden suburb on the land in 1907, hiring Wilbur Cook, who had worked with Olmsted, to curve the streets against the hillsides. It sold slowly until Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford built Pickfair in 1919, and the film industry followed them; the city incorporated in 1914 and, in 1923, its residents — Pickford, Fairbanks, Will Rogers and others — successfully campaigned against annexation by Los Angeles.
That independence is the whole point. Beverly Hills has its own police, its own school district, some of the strictest residential zoning in California and a business district — the Golden Triangle — that generates enough tax revenue to fund all of it. Rodeo Drive's three blocks are a global brand in their own right. The residential streets, though, are the actual pleasure: jacarandas, palms in ranks, and a hundred years of American domestic architecture from Spanish Colonial to mid-century modern, all in walking distance.
Places of character
Greystone Mansion — a 1928 Tudor estate on sixteen acres, city-owned, with gardens open daily and free. Rodeo Drive and Via Rodeo — the retail three blocks, worth twenty minutes for the architecture of display. The residential flats — Roxbury, Bedford, Camden: mature trees and a century of houses, walkable. Annenberg Community Beach House, Santa Monica — Marion Davies's 1920s beach estate, now public. Beverly Hills Hotel and the Polo Lounge — 1912, pink, and older than the city that grew around it. The Getty Center — fifteen minutes west, free, with Meier's travertine and the collection above the freeway.
The way to do it
Walk the residential flats rather than driving Rodeo — the architecture is the interest and it is free. Go to Greystone early. Take one hotel bar as a period experience. And treat the city as a base for the west side: the Getty, LACMA and Santa Monica are all fifteen minutes away.
One perfect day
Coffee, then Greystone Mansion at opening with the gardens empty and the city hazy below. Walk down through the flats — Sunset to Santa Monica Boulevard — reading houses. Rodeo Drive for twenty minutes and Via Rodeo for the staged Europeanness of it. Lunch somewhere on Canon. Afternoon at the Getty Center, which needs three hours and gives them back. Return for a drink at the Polo Lounge in the pink hotel, where the phones used to be brought to the table. Dinner in West Hollywood, ten minutes east.
Grand hotels
Beverly Hills Hotel — 1912, the pink palace that predates the city, with bungalows in the garden. Hotel Bel-Air — 1946 in a canyon nearby, with swans and the most private courtyards in Los Angeles.
When to go
Best expression: March to May — jacarandas in bloom, clear air after the rains, and comfortable heat. Consider: October and November, warm and dry with the marine layer gone. Avoid if possible: awards season traffic in late February and the smoggy peak of late summer.
The frame
Ideal stay 2 nights within a Los Angeles trip · Minimum a day · Best arrival by car, unavoidably · Airport LAX, 18 km · Walkability excellent within the flats · Best without a car difficult beyond the city limits