Beverly Hills

History of the town

Although an independent town with some 34,000 inhabitants, Beverly Hills is completely surrounded by the metropolitan area of the city of Los Angeles, and has grown so close to it that the tourist will scarcely get the feeling that he is in a different borough. Situated about 12mi/19km west of Downtown Los Angeles, Beverly Hills was first laid out in 1906 by a land speculator from Beverly Farms in Massachusetts (hence its name) in accordance with a plan whereby the streets would run at a 45 degree angle north from Wilshire Boulevard.

However, the town developed only slowly, even after the Beverly Hills Hotel was built in 1912, and the census of 1920 showed the population to number only 674.

It was due entirely to the growing film industry that more and more film people settled in the wide tree-lined streets, and found it even more pleasing to possess plots of land in the hills at the foot of the Santa Monica mountains, where they built large villas. Pickfair (1143 Summit Drive), the house built by the husband and wife actors Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford and where the actress lived in complete seclusion until her death in 1980, was from 1920 until 1935, when they separated, the social focal point of the film colony.

Town of the rich

Today, Beverly Hills is the richest town in America. 75 years ago the growing of beans brought its first profits, then came the oil magnates and the film millionaires. The average annual income per family of over $100,000 is four times more than the American average.

Beverly Hills is also the town of superlatives: here are the cleanest streets and the best-kept districts, the most modern fire-engines and most efficient waste disposal. 3,000 private swimming pools, 250 private tennis courts, 140 jewelry shops, 214 first-class restaurants and a vast number of beauty salons, business and divorce lawyers and medical practices, mainly psychologists and psychiatrists, round off the picture of this town. The percentage of banks, saving banks and police is also higher than elsewhere in the United States.

Legal peculiarities

Beverly Hills has its own laws, which sometimes seem a bit strange. People walking through the villa-lined streets tend not to be viewed with favor. For one thing there are no pavements and, for another, a pedestrian looks suspicious. You must provide proof of identity when asked by the police to do so, to avoid being arrested for vagrancy. As an alternative to walking, some business-minded entrepreneurs offer jogging tours through the attractions of "Billionaires' Hill". Since 1987 smoking has been prohibited in all restaurants (except hotel-restaurants), although you can still continue to enjoy a cigarette a few streets away in the restaurants of Los Angeles.

The size of shop signs is also legally controlled, as everything which smacks of money - such as advertising posters which are usually so conspicuous everywhere else - is prohibited. There are also special regulations relating to car parking at night.