Beverly Hills, CA

Jill's Journal: There’s not too many cities more fun to spend a day in than Beverly Hills. If you’ve never been to the famed 90210 zip code, well, then whatever you’ve heard about Beverly Hills is probably all true. The homes are mansions, the people are glamorous, the cars cost more than some houses, and the shopping is beyond upscale.

Beverly Hills is part of the “Platinum Triangle,” which also includes the extremely wealthy L.A. neighborhoods of Bel Air and Holmby Hills. There are probably more celebrities, media moguls, record executives, heirs and heiresses, and otherwise excessively loaded people in this area than in any other part of the world. Here’s a fun fact: the operating budget for the City of Beverly Hills (with a mere 34,000 residents) is more than $300 million, comparable to the gross national product of the British Virgin Islands.

Suddenly our beat-up little minivan feels grossly inadequate!

Here’s a typical residential street in Beverly Hills. They’re all immaculate with lots of meticulously-groomed greenery.

This is the gate to what has to be the most famous house in the area: Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion.

This driveway is a bit more on the infamous side…Heidi Fleiss ran her high-priced brothel from here.

Far ritzier is the exclusive Beverly Hills Hotel. The “Pink Palace” has been named one of the best places in the world for spotting celebrities, any time of the day and any day of the week. The hotel fiercely guards its guests’ privacy, whether they’re there for lunch or overnight. And yet, if you can think of a celebrity or a president or a member of a royal family, chances are they’ve been photographed here. It’s been at the height of luxury since it was built in 1912 and remains that way now. It’s currently owned by the sultan of Brunei and its most-sighted celebrity is believed to be Jennifer Aniston. Elizabeth Taylor honeymooned here with six of her eight husbands. Howard Hughes paid $350,000 a year for the privilege of living here in the 1950s. It was featured on the cover of The Eagles’ “Hotel California.” The “cheap” rooms start at $445 a night, or you can go for the presidential suite’s 24-karat gold bathroom fixtures for $8,150 a night. And the presidential bungalows? If you have to ask how much they are, you can’t afford it.

Here’s another famed Beverly Hills hotel…the (Regent) Beverly Wilshire. This is where Richard Gere and Julia Roberts rendezvoused in “Pretty Woman.” Olympian Esther Williams also taught a teenaged Elizabeth Taylor how to swim in the pool. And people like Elvis Presley, John Lennon, and Warren Beatty have lived here long-term.

One can’t visit Beverly Hills without taking a turn on Rodeo Drive.

Every major clothing and jewelry designer in the world seems to have a shop here. It’s the place to see and be seen.

An offshoot of Rodeo is this European-style pedestrian street where the “Two Rodeo” shops beckon.

Back on Rodeo, a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport is parked in front of Bijan, the exclusive men’s wear store that is said to be the most expensive store in the world. You need an appointment just to get in the door. Bijan’s clothing is so luxurious that not only have a half dozen U.S. presidents and other countries’ heads of states worn it, but so have fashion-conscious sports stars like Michael Jordan, celebrities too numerous to count, and even other designers like Giorgio Armani and Oscar de la Renta! When other designers wear your clothes, I think that means you’ve officially arrived. As for the car, it’s worth $1.7 million and goes from 0 to 253mph in under 60 seconds.

One more shot of that car. It makes the BMW parked in front of it look rather pedestrian, doesn’t it?

Behind the big Beverly Hills sign, one can see the Beverly Hills Civic Center. The City Hall, library, police station, and more are there. Yes, that's the same police station featured by Eddie Murphy in “Beverly Hills Cop.”

The girls honestly didn’t care one bit about Beverly Hills. Their favorite part of the city? Undoubtedly this big tree in Beverly Gardens Park. They spent a very happy half-hour climbing all over it.

Here’s the very cool Paley Center for Media. Anyone can walk in, borrow a cubicle, and watch or listen to over 150,000 old t.v. or radio shows. Chris Rock sat here for hours in 2005 studying old Oscar broadcasts before he hosted the Academy Awards.

This place is truly amazing. The Greystone Mansion, built in 1928 by an oil tycoon, was the most expensive house ever built in California at its time. At over 400 acres, it was also the largest estate in Beverly Hills. The house alone featured over 46,000 square feet of living space.

These days, the City of Beverly Hills owns it and has turned its grounds into a city park. The mansion itself is one of the most-used sets in movies and television. If you’ve ever watched a movie or t.v. or a music video or a commercial, it’s virtually guaranteed you’ve seen Greystone somewhere even though you don’t know it. Spiderman (1, 2, and 3), The Bodyguard, Indecent Proposal, The Social Network, X-Men…and the list goes on and on and on.

Finally, a decent view of downtown L.A.!

I have to share this: my friend Leo wrote today regarding the smog in recent pictures. He far prefers to call it L.A.’s “beautiful golden mist.” His version is way better than mine, isn’t it? :)

Our Beverly Hills excursion ended with a very fun visit from Rob’s lifelong friend Pat. The two met as toddlers in Tahoe and have been close friends almost ever since. Nearly forty years of friendship; that’s something to write home about.

Griffith Park Observatory

Jill's Journal: Most major cities, not only in the U.S. but throughout the world, have an iconic park associated with them. Los Angeles is no exception, although the legendary Griffith Park almost didn’t happen. In 1896, Welch immigrant and wealthy mine speculator Colonel Griffith J. Griffith bequeathed 3,015 acres (or about five square miles) to L.A. for use as a park. At the time, L.A. had only 100,000 residents and the land was about a mile outside of the city. The city hesitated briefly, declaring it too far out of town, but soon accepted anyway. If only they could have seen into the future. In the century since, the 10+ million inhabitants of the L.A. area cover every square inch surrounding Griffith Park, which itself now covers over 4,200 acres.

The showpiece of Griffith Park is Griffith Observatory, one of the most visited landmarks in Southern California and the most visited public observatory in the world. The same Griffith who donated the park land had a great interest in astronomy and donated $100,000 a century ago to the City of Los Angeles to build an observatory on top of Mt. Hollywood. He wanted to make the sciences, particularly astronomy, more accessible to the public. The Observatory wasn’t formally opened until 1935, long after Griffith’s death.

Today it houses all sorts of science exhibits with a strong focus on astronomy and, with the exception of the planetarium, is free to the public. However, I suspect most of the millions of annual visitors are there for the iconic building itself – which is truly beautiful – and the surrounding views, some of the most spectacular in the city.

Did I mention the views? One has an excellent view of downtown L.A., which you can just barely see at the horizon in the middle of this photo due to the almost ever-present smog. It really did seem like a clear day until we tried to look out a distance. I don’t think air quality in L.A. is quite as bad as it’s supposed to be in Beijing, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for you either.

Hundreds of scenes in movies and television have been filmed at the Observatory, most notably some pivotal moments in “Rebel Without a Cause” with James Dean in 1955. It was “Rebel” which brought the Observatory into worldwide consciousness outside of L.A. Although this monument is of Dean, a plaque notates its more of an acknowledgement of the Observatory’s long and prosperous relationship with Hollywood. Note the Hollywood sign just over to the right of the monument in the background.

And here it is closer up. There’s that pesky smog again.

Like the Hollywood sign, the unique Observatory can be spotted from many places around L.A. I’ve heard it called the city’s “hood ornament,” which seems to be extra fitting since L.A. is such a car society.