Michael Gross - Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition, and the Lust for Land in Los Angeles

{ THE GREENACRES GATES }

Copyight 2011 by Idee Fixe Ltd.

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

Broadway Books and the Broadway Books colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Sheldon Harnick for permission to reprint lyrics from If I Were a Rich Man by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

eISBN: 978-0-7679-3266-0

Illustrations and endpaper map by Fred Haynes
Jacket design by Jennifer OConnor
Jacket photography by Ian Cumming/Axiom Photographic Agency/Getty Images

v3.1

For Barbara

And to Patience and Fortitude

Id build a big tall house with rooms by the dozen,
Right in the middle of the town.
A fine tin roof with real wooden floors below.
There would be one long staircase just going up,
And one even longer coming down,
And one more leading nowhere, just for show.
SHELDON HARNICK , If I Were a Rich Man, Fiddler on the Roof

Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT (18671959)

Burton Green

Max Whittier

Edwin and Harold Janss

Minnewa and Alphonzo Bell

Charles Canfield and Jake Danziger

Harold Lloyd, Charles Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks at the Beverly Hills Hotel

Neil Steere McCarthy

Diane Stockmar, Dolly Green, and Burtie Green at Stockmars wedding

Harold Greenlin (left) with Habib Carouba and their lawyer George Choppelas

Steven Macallum Powers (left), Bernie Cornfeld and friend

Stewart and Lynda Resnick with Barbara Davis (right)

This book is about sixteen great estates in the best neighborhoods of Los Angelesthe contiguous communities of Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills, and Beverly Park. Of those, seven emerged as the books main characters. Five are in Beverly Hills: Grayhall (1100 Carolyn Way), Greenacres (1740 Green Acres Place), Greystone (905 Loma Vista Drive), The Knoll (1130 Schuyler Road), and 9481 Sunset Boulevard, named Sunset House by its latest owner. In Holmby Hills, there is Owlwood (141 South Carolwood Drive), so named by owner number eight, and in Bel Air, Casa Encantada (10644 Bellagio Road), the name used by owner number two. The street addresses of some of these estates have changed over the years for reasons ranging from subdivision to privacy concerns. To aid identification, they are generally referred to by their current addresses.

These trophy homes are not historic relics. All but Greystone are occupied today, and several continue to grow. The owners of Sunset House just swallowed a third neighboring lot. Owlwood now incorporates two more of the great estates on the famous 10000 block of Sunset Boulevard (10060 and 10100 Sunset, both demolished in 2002).

Those last two ghost housesgone but not forgottenare also featured players in this story, as are seven secondary estates, some still standing, some not, that are intimately connected to the history of this linked bracelet of gilded neighborhoods. But those sixteen estates are really only windows onto the fabulous, sometimes glorious, but as often toxic and corrupt lives of the real subjects of the bookthe owners and occupants of those homes over the last century, along with the founders of the four communities and a handful of major figures from the history of greater Los Angeles. Their great fortunes fueled their lust for land, power, prominence, and opulenceand have made these incredibly unreal estates very real, indeed.

PIONEERS AND FOUNDERS

Brian Adler: Developer of Beverly Park North.

Margaret and Stanley Anderson: Mother-and-son proprietors of the Hollywood Hotel and founder-proprietors of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Alphonzo Edward Bell: Oilman, founder of Bel Air, owner of the Santa Monica Mountain Park Ranch, and second owner of La Quinta, which he renamed Capo di Monte (since demolished).

Elizabeth, Minnewa, and Alphonzo Bell Jr.: Children of Alphonzo Bell.

Edson Benedict: A pioneer settler of Benedict Canyon.

Pierce Benedict: Son of Edson and the first president of Beverly Hills.

Leonard I. Bursten: First, failed developer of Beverly Park; former prosecutor; convicted tax evader.

Charles Adelbert Canfield: Edward Dohenys partner in the oil business. Leader of the cofounders of Beverly Hills.

Harry Chandler and Harrison Gray Otis: Fathers of the Los Angeles Times; land owners and investors. Chandler was a cofounder of the city of Hollywood.