History

Early History

The Beverly Hills Hotel (seen above in 1989) was the first major construction project in what became Beverly Hills. Maria Rita Quinteros de Valdez and her husband arrived in the region around 1828. In 1854, she sold the ranch to Benjamin Davis Wilson (1811–1878) and Henry Hancock (1822–1883). By the 1880s, the ranch had been broken into portions of 75 acres (0.30 km2) and was being quickly purchased up by Anglos from Los Angeles and the East coast.

On August 3, 1769, Gaspar de Portolá landed in the region that would later become Beverly Hills, going along native pathways that paralleled Wilshire Boulevard today. The majority of it was purchased by Henry Hammel and Andrew H. Denker, who utilized it to grow lima beans. The Hammel and Denker Ranch was the name of the place at the time. They planned to create a town named Morocco on their lands by 1888.

20th Century

Will Rogers, actor, with a model of the City Hall construction project from 1934. The Amalgamated Oil Company was founded in 1900 by Burton E. Green, Charles A. Canfield, Max Whittier, Frank H. Buck, Henry E. Huntington, William G. Kerckhoff, William F. Herrin, W.S. Porter, and Frank H. Balch, who purchased the Hammel and Denker ranch and began exploring for oil. However, by the standards of the day, they did not uncover enough to exploit economically. As a result, they renamed the site “Beverly Hills,” subdivided it, and began selling lots in 1906 as the Rodeo Land and Water Company. Beverly Hills was called after Beverly Farms in Beverly, Massachusetts (which was named after Beverley from Beaver Lake in East Yorkshire, England) and the hills in the area.

The Rodeo Land and Water Company (the Canfield-Huntington-Kerckhoff syndicate) is supervising the development of the foothill section of the Hammel & Denker ranch, dubbed Beverly Hills, for the Rodeo Land and Water Company (the Canfield-Huntington-Kerckhoff syndicate). To create this a lovely suburban district, no money has been spared. The home is designed with lovely curving lines.

The subdivision’s first house was erected in 1907, but sales remained slow. Around this period, a number of all-white planned communities sprung up in the Los Angeles region. Non-whites could not own or rent property unless they were hired as servants by white inhabitants, according to restrictive covenants. In Beverly Hills, it was likewise illegal to sell or rent property to Jews.

The Beverly Hills Hotel was built by Burton Green in 1911. In 1912, the hotel was completed. The hotel’s visitors were enticed to buy land in Beverly Hills, and by 1914, the population had grown to the point where it could be incorporated as a separate city. The Rodeo Land and Water Company chose to split its water and real estate businesses the same year. In September 1914, the Beverly Hills Utility Commission separated from the land business and formed, purchasing all of the Rodeo Land and Water Company’s utilities-related assets.

Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford purchased land on Summit Drive in 1919 and erected a home, which was completed in 1921 and dubbed “Pickfair” by the press. The city’s burgeoning popularity was aided by the glamour associated with Fairbanks and Pickford, as well as other cinema stars who acquired houses in the city.

Beverly Hills’ population had expanded to the point that water supply had become a political problem by the early 1920s. In 1923, the customary answer was proposed: annexation to the city of Los Angeles. Famous locals like as Pickford, Fairbanks, Will Rogers, and Rudolph Valentino were vocal in their resistance to annexation. The Beverly Hills Utility Commission, which was also opposed to annexation, was able to demand a special election, which resulted in the plan’s failure.

Part of the former Beverly Hills Speedway, the Beverly Wilshire Apartment Hotel (now the Beverly Wilshire Hotel) debuted on Wilshire Boulevard between El Camino and Rodeo drives in 1928. In the same year, oilman Edward L. Doheny completed Greystone Home, a 55-room mansion built for his son Edward L. Doheny, Jr. as a wedding present. The city of Beverly Hills presently owns the mansion, which has been classified as a historical site.

Santa Monica Park was renamed Beverly Gardens in the early 1930s, and the park was expanded to cover the whole two-mile (3-kilometer) length of Santa Monica Boulevard through the city. With a little sculpture at the top of a Tongva kneeling, the Electric Fountain marks the corner of Santa Monica Blvd. and Wilshire Blvd.

Despite the city’s covenants limiting only whites to reside there, black performers and businesspeople began to relocate into Beverly Hills in the early 1940s. The covenant was sought to be enforced in court by a local improvement group. Hattie McDaniel, Louise Beavers, and Ethel Waters, among others, were among the accused. Harold Lloyd, the silent cinema actor, was one of the white inhabitants who supported the lawsuit against blacks. The NAACP was a participant in the winning defense. Federal judge Thurmond Clarke said in his conclusion that it was past time for “members of the Negro race to be afforded, without restrictions or evasions, the full rights guaranteed to them by the 14th amendment.” In Shelley v. Kraemer, the United States Supreme Court held restrictive covenants unconstitutional in 1948. In this case, a group of Jewish citizens of Beverly Hills filed an amicus brief.

Paul Trousdale (1915–1990) bought the Doheny Ranch lands in 1956 and turned them into the Trousdale Estates, persuading the city of Beverly Hills to annex it. Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Curtis, Ray Charles, President Richard Nixon, and, more recently, Jennifer Aniston, David Spade, Vera Wang, and John Rich have all lived in the area.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) proposed extending the Metro Red Line down Wilshire Boulevard and into downtown Beverly Hills in the late 1990s, but the city vetoed the project.

21st Century

The LACMTA then proposed a bus rapid transit line along Santa Monica Blvd. in 2001, but the city rejected it as well, and it was never built. This stretch of road is served by Metro Rapid buses that use pre-existing routes and are less efficient. By 2010, traffic in Beverly Hills and its environs had gotten so bad that the city’s usual resistance had shifted to support for subways within the municipal limits. The D Line of the LA Metro Rail was supposed to be extended into Beverly Hills in 2013, as part of the Westside Subway Extension project, with two underground stations at Wilshire/La Cienega and Wilshire/Rodeo by the 2020s.

Proposition 8, a 2008 ballot proposition that abolished legal recognition of same-sex marriages, was heavily opposed by the city of Beverly Hills. The measure narrowly passed nationwide, but just 34% of voters in Beverly Hills supported it, while 66% opposed it.

During the 2015 drought, Beverly Hills was discovered to be one of California’s top water users. As a result, the state requested a 36 percent reduction in usage, causing many people to replace their lawns with native flora. Meanwhile, the local government has planted Mexican sage in front of City Hall to replace the grass.

Beverly Hills and Israel inked an agreement in September 2015 to collaborate on water use, as well as “cybersecurity, public health, emergency services, disaster preparedness, public safety, counterterrorism, and art and culture.” The United States Conference of Mayors awarded the City of Beverly Hills the Livability Award in July 2016 for its Ambassador Program, which cares for the city’s homeless population.

On September 6, 2016, the Beverly Hills Community Dog Park was dedicated.

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