President Ronald Reagan lived at 668 St. Cloud Road in Bel Air (formerly 666 St. Cloud, but changed because of Satanic overtones of the address) from his retirement as President in 1989 until his death in 2004, and former First Lady Nancy Reagan continues to live there. The quaint Hotel Bel Air is home to many celebrity weddings. The hotel does not share the views most of the homes share, but it does have extensive gardens and keeps swans in its pond Located at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains, bounded by the San Diego Freeway on the east, Wilshire Boulevard on the south, the Santa Monica city limits on the southwest, the border of Topanga State Park on the west and Mulholland Drive along the ridgeline of the mountains on the north. Nearby neighborhoods and cities include Pacific Palisades on the west, Santa Monica on the southwest, West Los Angeles on the south, Sawtelle on the southeast, Westwood on the east, Bel-Air on the northeast and Encino on the north. Brentwood's ZIP code is 90049, which includes Brentwood and part of Bel-Air Estates (the other section of Bel-Air Estates is located in the 90077 zip code). It is addressed, Los Angeles, CA 90049 to avoid confusion with Brentwood in Northern California. The Hollywood Hills form the north barrier of the Los Angeles Basin. There has been extensive residential development in the Hollywood Hills since the 1920s. The area includes Mulholland Drive, Beachwood Canyon, Laurel Canyon, Nichols Canyon and Mount Olympus and is dotted with the mansions of the rich and famous. Traditionally, the designation "Hollywood Hills" comprised the hill neighborhoods north of West Hollywood and Hollywood proper and excluding the more westerly neighborhoods. However, in recent years the meaning has expanded to include areas such as Benedict and Coldwater Canyons. Hollywood Hills is similar in name to the affluent suburban community of Hollywood Hill in Woodinville, Washington. The Hollywood Hills has been mentioned in various movies and television shows including Mulholland Drive and the 2005 movie Cursed. It is home to many stars including Anthony Kiedis, John Frusciante, Christina Aguilera, Tom Leykis, Rob Dyrdek, Chris Boykin, Justin Timberlake, Kevin Smith, Paris Hilton, and Tila Nguyen. In 1884, about 2,000 acres (8 km²) of this land came into the possession of a forty-niner named John Wolfskill, who paid $10 an acre for it and built a ranch house near the present-day LA Temple of the LDS Church. But the actual development of Holmby Hills began when millionaire Arthur Letts, Sr. purchased 400 acres (1.6 km²) of the original Wolfskill ranch at $100 an acre. Letts, who was born in England in 1862, had made his fortune by transforming a small, bankrupt dry goods business in Los Angeles into the Broadway Department Store empire. He was not only a shrewd businessman, but also a skilled horticulturist; the grounds of his Hollywood home were planted with an astonishing variety of trees, shrubs, and flowers, and his cactus collection was known across the country. His master plan for the prime land he had purchased in west L.A. was to create a neighborhood of grandiose estates. He personally christened the development "Holmby Hills," which was loosely derived from the name of his birthplace, a small hamlet in England called Holdenby. Letts died suddenly in 1923, before he could realize his vision. His son-in-law, Harold Janss, took over the project, which was billed as "The Ultimate in Residential Estate Development." Zoning for the community, which straddles Sunset Boulevard, was designed to accommodate large lot sizes (up to 4 acres). Electric and telephone lines were buried beneath the wide, tree-lined streets to preserve the landscape. Handsome, English-style street lamps, designed exclusively for Holmby Hills, were erected throughout the neighborhood. Among the first mansions built here in the late 1920s was the Tudor-style home of the founder's son, Arthur Letts, Jr. Thanks to its lush landscaping, enormous lot sizes, and privacy, from the beginning Holmby Hills has attracted the rich and famous. In the 1950s, Walt Disney built his dream home here, which featured a miniature steam railroad, complete with 300 feet of track and a 90-foot (27 m)-long tunnel. In years past, and right into the present, celebrities such as Judy Garland, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Gary Cooper, Barbra Streisand, Sonny & Cher, and many others have all called Holmby Hills their home. Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Enterprise make Holmby Hills their home. The Census Bureau 2006 population estimate for Santa Monica is 88,050, while a 2007 estimate from the California State Department of Finance places the population at 91,124 [1][2]. Santa Monica is named for Saint Monica of Hippo because the area on which the city is now located was first visited by Spaniards on her feast day. In the skateboard and surfing communities, Santa Monica's Ocean Park neighborhood and adjacent parts of Venice are sometimes called Dogtown. Santa Monica is sometimes referred to with the colloquial abbreviation "SaMo," a precursor to similar terms such as NoHo and WeHo. Because of its agreeable weather, Santa Monica had become a famed resort town by the early 20th century. The city has experienced a boom since the late 1980s through the revitalization of its downtown core with significant job growth and increased tourism. Because there is a census-designated place (CDP) in Northern California's Lassen County named Westwood, California, the United States Postal Service has declared that all mail addressed to the Westwood district of Los Angeles must be labeled "Los Angeles, CA" instead of "Westwood, CA". In general, all districts of Los Angeles located south of the San Fernando Valley (with one or two exceptions) are addressed "Los Angeles, CA".
-Bel Air
Bel Air is a district in the west side of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. The faux-gated community was founded by Alphonzo E. Bell, Sr. in 1923 and is part of the so-called "Platinum Triangle" of Bel Air, Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills. About 12 miles west of downtown, Bel-Air is known as an exclusive residential community that includes some of the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains and borders the north side of UCLA.
Residences in Bel Air range from modest ranch and story-and-half configurations to grand mansions. Many homes in Bel Air seem quite modest from the outside, often lying only six feet from the street; however, they tend to have large grounds and an estate feeling. In general, the higher up the mountain, the smaller the building lot and more modest the homes; however, those residences along roads such as Stradella Road have magnificent views of the Los Angeles basin and Catalina Island. The most desirable homes are right off the main entrances of Bel Air and the country club entrance for these homes have both the views of the Bel Air Country Club and the rest of Los Angeles. Lower Bel Air homes can sell for over $20 million. Many families prefer lower Bel Air because of its proximity to Sunset Boulevard, a major thoroughfare.
-Beverly Hills
A developer laid out a 36 block village in the are in 1869, intending to call it Santa Maria. During the 1880s, promoters planned a town called Morocco, which never materialized. Then, in 1906, oil tycoon and city founder Burton Green, who was from Wisconsin, named the community after Beverly, Mass., a quaint Atlantic Coast town 25 miles north of Boston. By 1911, only six houses - on estate-size lots - had been built on the 4,539 acres of lima bean fields. The homes sold for $300 to $1,000.
Beverly Hills is bordered on the north by Bel-Air and the Santa Monica Mountains, on the east by West Hollywood, the Carthay neighborhood of Los Angeles, and the Fairfax District of Los Angeles, on the south by the Los Angeles neighborhood of Beverlywood, and on the west by Holmby Hills as well as Westwood Village and Century City, which are also Los Angeles districts.
-Brentwood
Brentwood is an affluent district in the West Los Angeles region of Los Angeles, California, United States; it is sometimes confused with Brentwood, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California.
-Hollywood Hills
The Hollywood Hills, an unofficial designation of part of the City of Los Angeles, California, are part of the eastern section of the low transverse range of the Santa Monica Mountains, which extends from the Los Feliz District and Hollywood, on the south side of the Valley, to Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu and Pacific Palisades.
-Holmby Hills
The first developer of the land that Holmby Hills, Westwood, and UCLA now occupy was Don Maximo Alanis, a Spanish soldier who obtained title to 4,438 acres (18 km²) under a Mexican land grant in 1843. He called it San Jose de Buenos Ayres.
-Malibu
The city of Malibu is a 21-mile[5] (33.5 km) strip of Pacific coastline; a beachfront community famous for its warm, sandy beaches, and for being the home of countless movie stars and others associated with the Southern California entertainment industries. Most Malibu residents live within a few hundred yards of Pacific Coast Highway (State Route 1), which traverses the city, with some residents living up to a mile away from the beach up narrow canyons; the city is also bounded (more or less) by Topanga Canyon to the east, the Santa Monica Mountains to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the south, and Ventura County to the west. Its beaches include Surfrider Beach, Zuma Beach, Malibu State Beach and Topanga State Beach; its local parks include Malibu Bluffs Park[6] (formerly Malibu Bluffs State Park) and the planned Legacy Park[7], with neighboring parks Malibu Creek State Park, Leo Carillo State Beach and Park[8], Point Mugu State Park[9], and the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, and neighboring state beach Robert H. Meyer Memorial State Beach[10], that was once part of Old Malibu (before Malibu became a city), and better known as pristine beaches, El Pescador, La Piedra and El Matador.
Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo is believed to have moored at Malibu Lagoon, at the mouth of Malibu Creek, to obtain fresh water in 1542. The Spanish presence returned with the California mission system, and the area was part of a 13,000 acre (120 km²) land grant in 1802. That ranch passed intact to Frederick Hastings Rindge in 1891. He and his widow, Rhoda May Rindge, guarded their privacy zealously by hiring guards to evict all trespassers and fighting a lengthy court battle to prevent the building of a Southern Pacific railroad line. Few roads even entered the area before 1929, when the state won another court case and built what is now known as the Pacific Coast Highway. By then May Rindge was forced to subdivide her property and begin selling and leasing lots. The Rindge house, known as the Adamson House[12] (a [National Historic Site] and [California Landmark]), is now part of Malibu Creek State Park and is situated between [Malibu Lagoon State Beach][13] and Surfrider Beach, beside the Malibu Pier[14] that was originally built for the family yacht.
-Santa Monica
Santa Monica is a coastal city in western Los Angeles County, California, USA. Situated on Santa Monica Bay of the Pacific Ocean, it is surrounded by the City of Los Angeles - Pacific Palisades and Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles and Mar Vista on the east, and Venice on the south.
-Westwood
known as the home of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The eastern portions of the district are often thought of as a distinctly different neighborhood, Holmby Hills. Westwood was carved from the old Wolfskill Farm, a 3,000 acre (12 km²) tract that was purchased in 1919 by wealthy retailer Arthur Letts. Letts' son-in-law, Harold Janss, was vice president of Janss Investment Company, which developed the area and started advertising new homes in 1922.
Built by the Janss family's Janss Corporation and wildly successful from its earliest stages, the Westwood Village shopping district successfully retained its cozy village atmosphere even as the San Diego Freeway came through the area in the 1950s and high-rise office towers went up around it in the following decades. However, much of this construction was planned around the never-built Beverly Hills Freeway; in combination with a perceived parking shortage at UCLA, high-density development in Westwood has created some of the worst traffic congestion in Los Angeles. Even with the opening of numerous municipal parking structures in the 1990s and 2000s, finding a parking spot in Westwood Village is still a notoriously difficult task. With the proximity of Westwood's towering business area to its shops that line the streets around UCLA, parking and traffic issues dominate local planning debates.