Holmby Hills real estate is a prestigious neighborhood in the Westwood district on the western part of Los Angeles, reminiscent of exclusive residential communities in New England. Known for its classic east coast style, Holmby Hills real estate offers rolling hill estates and wide open streets lined by majestic towering trees and custom old world street lamps specifically designed for this area. Holmby Hills is bordered on the East by the City of Beverly Hills, on the West by Westwood, the Wilshire Corridor on the south and Bel Air on the north. In the 1920’s, Sunset Blvd was a two-lane country road known as Beverly Boulevard. When Sunset Blvd was renamed when it was opened through to the Ocean and expanded into a four-lane through-fare Holmby Hills real estate was split into North and South sections. Originally, Holmby Hills was laid out on 400 acres of the original 2,000-acre Wolfskill which the founder of the Broadway department stores, Arthur Letts Sr., had bought for $100 an acre. Letts chose the name “Holmby Hills” deriving it from his birthplace, a small hamlet in England called “Holdenby”. Letts master plan for the prime land he had purchased in west Los Angeles was to create a neighborhood of grand Bel Air estates. From the beginning of development, zoning was implemented to guarantee large lot sizes and to ensure utility wires were buried beneath the tree-lined streets to help preserve the landscape. In a majority of “Little Holmby” the east coast style architecture has been honored and kept in its original form. On average, homes are 3,000 to 4,000 square feet on generous size lots and Bel Air houses for sale range in price from $2 million to $4 million. In the Holmby Hills estate section (east of Beverly Glen Boulevard) a 2000 census found this to be the highest income neighborhood in the United States with a mean household income of $780,925. Holmby Hills Estates, Bel Air homes, and Beverly Hills houses form the “Platinum Triangle” of Los Angeles, which are the priciest and most exclusive neighborhoods in the United States. South Mapleton Drive and North Carolwood Drive in Holmby Hills, along with Nimes Road and St. Cloud Road in Bel Air, are the most prominent and famous residential streets in all of the Platinum Triangle. Many high-level entertainment industry executives, such as Walt Disney, Interscope Records founder Jimmy Iovine, celebrity television producer Aaron Spelling, movie mogul Ray Stark, music and entertainment legend Michael Jackson and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner (whose home is better known as the Playboy Mansion) currently reside or have previously resided in the Holmby Hills area. Celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Jean Harlow, Lana Turner, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Gary Cooper, Barbra Streisand, Irene Dunne, Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Jack Benny, Kelsey Grammer, Sammy Davis Jr., Sonny & Cher, Nat King Cole, and Marilyn Monroe have all called Holmby Hills their home.
