Beverly Hills Heritage

Silent film star Harold Lloyd's extraordinary Christmas tree at his magnificent estate, Greenacres in Beverly Hills was an event in itself. So large and complex, it became a year-round fixture. Suzanne Lloyd, Harold Lloyd’s granddaughter, tells her Christmas memories of growing up at Greenacres: It started sometime around Thanksgiving. My grandparents would take me downtown to the train yards where the annual shipment of trees would arrive for the holiday season. We would pi...ck out three large Douglas firs and they would be wired together to make one enormous, fantastic Christmas tree. It sat at one end of the garden room rising 20 feet in the air. It was nine-feet wide and almost 30 feet around. It took from Thanksgiving until Christmas to decorate the tree. Over the years, my grandfather had collected thousands of ornaments from all over the world. The tree held one-of-a-kind rare ornaments valued in the hundreds of dollars when they were first purchased in the ’30s and ‘40s. The tree also held homemade ones that Harold received from his charity work. I remember a jeweled encrusted ostrich egg, and a sequined football, (a reference to the college football hero Harold Lloyd played in his most popular film, The Freshman.) I particularly loved a Christmas ball given to him by his friend, make-up artist, Wally Westmore, that was a miniature diorama depicting a bespectacled Harold in a red bathrobe trimming the tree. One year we counted over 5,000 ornaments hanging from the tree and we still had enough left over to decorate 3 more trees just as big! Every year the tree grew larger to hold more ornaments; then one year it became a permanent fixture in our home. It was simply too large, too decorated and too engineered to disassemble. So we had it fireproofed and celebrated Christmas every day of the year!

Perhaps the most cherished holiday season tradition in Beverly Hills continues to be Santa and his reindeer flying over the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Beverly Drive. In years past, however, Santa got around, also flying over South Beverly Drive at Charleville Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard at Santa Monica Boulevard. Notice that the team of reindeer changed over time, beginning as eight white deer in single file and now being nine tan deer in total, eight flying in four pairs with Rudolph alone in the lead.

The Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce enlists the help of Santa behind the wheel of a Lincoln convertible to usher in the holiday season as they roll down Santa Monica Boulevard, ca. 1930. Only in Beverly Hills would you have a live ballerina posing as a hood ornament! This was back in a time when Beverly Gardens Park had those huge pine trees that were decorated for the holidays.

A reminder from our friends at the Friends of Greystone about this weekend’s virtual Beverly Hills Art Show

A memory of a lost landmark, the Beverly Theatre on Beverly Drive, just north of Wilshire Boulevard, that was demolished to make way for what was originally called the Montage, now the Maybourne, Hotel.

Halloween 2020 will not be celebrated in Beverly Hills in order to limit spread of the pandemic, especially around one of the most attractive spots for trick or treating, the Witch’s House at 516 Walden Drive (Landmark No. 8 on the Beverly Hills Local Register of Historic Properties). Accordingly, the City Council has issued temporary parking restrictions in the northeast portion of the City adjacent to West Hollywood (where the annual Halloween carnival has also been cancele...d) and the closure of the following streets to pedestrians and vehicles from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.: Carmelita Avenue at Wilshire Boulevard, Walden Drive Southbound at Elevado Avenue, Walden Drive at Santa Monica Boulevard, Carmelita Westbound at North Linden Drive, and The alley between North Linden Drive and Walden Drive from Santa Monica Boulevard to Elevado Avenue. For the health of our community, please respect this year’s restrictions so that we can return to normal for Halloween 2021.

The Los Angeles Conservancy has awarded its 2020 Royce Neuschatz Award for Historic Landscapes to Beverly Gardens Park, the green space that runs along the north side of Santa Monica Boulevard from Doheny Drive at the eastern boundary of the Beverly Hills to Wilshire Boulevard at the western boundary. A detailed history of the park is available at the link.

The Fine Arts Theatre’s neon blade sign has been restored.

One of the best remaining examples of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, the Clock Drivein Market was designated Landmark No. 31 on the Beverly Hills Local Register of Historic Properties in 2016. Designed by C.W. Wilson and Sons in 1929 and built at a cost of roughly $32,000, the Lshaped market was set into the northeast corner of Hamilton Drive and Wilshire Boulevard, with parking provided in the front within a formal forecourt. ...The building’s most prominent feature was the namesake clock tower. A small gas station was located on the southwest corner of the lot. Unlike markets today, each department was operated by a different tradesperson, who provided baked goods, meats, fruits, vegetables, groceries, and the like. The second story of the building contained a large multiroom residential apartment complete with Spanish Colonial style features. It was later converted into an office. By late 1930s, the character of the street had changed, and the usage of the structure changed as well, becoming an automobile showroom. The 1938 Beverly Hills city directory lists the Bill Davis Motor Car Company at 8423 Wilshire Boulevard. By the 1950s, the property became a factoryowned subsidiary distributor for the Citroen Cars Corporation, one of only two in the country at that time (the other in New York). In later years, the property operated as a PorscheAudi dealership until 2015.

The mortgage holder of the Saks Fifth Avenue building in Beverly Hills has filed to sell the building at foreclosure. The owner of Saks says this will not affect retail operations and sees the action as a maneuver to put pressure on it during the pandemic, rather than work out terms that take into account the resultant, unforeseeable economic downturn. Saks Fifth Avenue has been an iconic presence at its current Beverly Hills location since 1938, in a building designed for it by Parkinson and Parkinson with interiors by Paul Revere Williams.

In light of the ongoing pandemic, the Autumn 2020 edition of the Beverly Hills Art Show will be conducted virtually online, October 17-18, with a preview period October 9-16. http://www.beverlyhills.org//beverlyhill/2020/home/web.jsp

From Adsausage Archives, three pictures not seen before at Beverly Hills Heritage. The first, an aerial view of Wilshire Boulevard between La Cienega and San Vicente from 1972, shows three Beverly Hills icons, the Fox Wilshire (now Saban) Theatre, the Great Western building, and Delores Drive-In (sadly razed).

From our friends at the Los Angeles Conservancy, Garris House, a 1959 home in Trousdale Estates, Beverly Hills, designed by master architect Paul Revere Williams

Dedicated on September 11, 2011, the Beverly Hills 9/11 Memorial Garden is situated on the northwest corner of Rexford Drive, adjacent to the Civic Center fire station, where Burton Way becomes Little (South) Santa Monica Boulevard. At its center stands a piece of twisted steel girder that survived the terrorist attack that destroyed the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Benches allow visitors to sit and contemplate the nation’s loss of so ma...ny on that infamous day. Also featured is a model of the two iconic buildings, the originals of which were designed by Minoru Yamasaki, who was also the architect of the ABC Entertainment Center’s twin towers in Century City, just west of the Beverly Hills city line. (Note: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s 9/11 commemoration at the Memorial Garden has been canceled.) See more

Built during the Great Depression in 1933 for the extraordinary sum of $2 million, Cordhaven, the 18-acre estate of E.L. Cord, manufacturer of Cord, Auburn, and Duesenberg automobiles, was located on North Hillcrest Drive at Doheny Road. Built in the Southern Colonial revival style, the mansion sported 16 bedrooms, 22 bathrooms, and three dining rooms in 32,000 square feet. The architect was the incomparable Paul Revere Williams. Razed in 1963, the property was divided into 13 parcels and redeveloped. The Beverly Hills Auburn-Cord showroom was located on the east side of the 200 north block of Cañon Drive. (Photo credits: The mansion, Los Angeles Public Library; the dealership, Marc Wanamaker/Bison Archives)

The latest proposal for developing the site at 9900 Wilshire Boulevard that’s sat empty since the razing of Robinson’s has been unveiled. Dubbed One Beverly Hills and designed by the renowned British architect, Lord Norman Foster, the project would straddle Merv Griffin Drive and include two towers, the tallest in the city, with condominium residences and hotel suites, and public gardens, in addition to reconfiguring some of the Beverly Hilton property. https://www.latimes.com//prime-beverly-hills-spot-slated-f

Known first as the headquarters of Music Corporation of America (MCA) and, later, Litton Industries, the complex at 360 North Crescent Drive was designed in 1938 by master architect Paul Revere Williams, who was honored for it with the AIA Award of Merit, Southern California Chapter, the following year. It has been recommended by unanimous vote of the Beverly Hills Cultural Heritage Commission for inclusion by the City Council on the Local Register of Historic Properties. Loc...ated on the southeast corner of North Crescent Drive and Little Santa Monica Boulevard, the property totals 124,000 sq.ft., including a parking garage and gardens complete with fountains, colonnade, and statuary. Williams, who excelled in the English Georgian Revival style, chose it for the complex to create an inviting, home-like, yet professional environment that would create a relaxed, welcoming, club-like atmosphere for MCA’s clients, despite containing over 30 offices, a radio station, projection room, and hidden bar, in a structure sitting amidst lush gardens by Phil Shipley and Associates. In 1964, MCA sold the complex to Litton Industries. Litton’s president, Tex Thornton, brought Williams back to design a second, larger three-story building, as well as a parking structure across Crescent Drive, all in the style of the original building. The original building and additions, including the parking structure, are included in the Cultural Heritage Commission’s recommendation to the City Council. In 2003, the current owner, Platinum Equity, acquired the complex and now occupies the buildings. Photographs by Maynard L. Parker of the original building are from the collection of the Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

In addition to the previously reported vote of the Beverly Hills Cultural Heritage Commission to recommend landmarking Woodland, the John Elgin Woolf-designed home of the late Robert Evans, the Commission voted to recommend the MCA/Litton Industries headquarters, designed by master architect Paul Revere Williams, as well. Assuming the City Council votes to approve the designations, the inclusion of the timelessly beautiful Georgian Revival complex on the southeast corner of North Crescent Drive and Little Santa Monica Boulevard will complete the unusual circumstance of buildings on all four corners of the same intersection being listed on the City’s Local Register of Historic Properties. For more information, please see the report of the Beverly Hills Courier.

The Pendleton/Evans residence, Woodland, designed in 1941 for James Pendleton by master architect John Elgin Woolf in his signature Hollywood Regency style, was unanimously recommended by the Beverly Hills Cultural Heritage Commission to the City Council for inclusion on the City’s local register of historic properties. The house was previously owned by legendary film producer Robert Evans, who died in 2019. The home’s new owner, David Zaslav, President and CEO of Discovery, Inc., is committed to pursuing a restrained and sensitive restoration that includes rebuilding the pool house and the razed screening room. (With thanks to Steven Price)

Decking of the Wilshire Boulevard roadway has been completed between Cañon and Rodeo Drives seven months ahead of schedule for construction of a Metro stop. The boulevard is now reopened to traffic. https://thesource.metro.net//metro-completes-decking-for/