Beverly Hills is a city known the world over for being home to the rich and famous.

Contrary to conventional stereotypes however, Beverly Hills is not as consistently and homogenously wealthy as Hollywood movies portray it. Even if it admittedly does have some of the biggest houses in Los Angeles County, these homes only make up a mere one tenth of the city. Many of the homes are small duplex rental units, or detached homes with less than 3,000 square feet. In fact there are parts of Los Angeles County that are wealthier than Beverly Hills as evidenced by its higher household median income than Beverly Hills does. At just over $71,000 income per household, that puts the city at only $18,000 higher than Los Angeles County as a whole.

Beverly Hills can be found in the western part of the Los Angeles County in California. It is enclosed by the city of Los Angeles. Along with Bel-Air and Holmby Hills, Beverly Hills is part of the so-called "Golden Triangle".

To the north, Beverly Hills is bordered by the Santa Monica Mountains; on its East you will find the City of West Hollywood and the Fairfax District of the City of Los Angeles. The Southern part of Beverly Hills is bordered by Los Angeles. Westwood Village and Century City (which are neighborhoods of Los Angeles and not independent incorporated cities) line up along its Western border.

History
The future site of Beverly Hills has always held a position of great economic and (at one time) religious significance.During the rainy season, the canyons currently known as Coldwater and Benedict used to channel water down into the area that would one day be known as Beverly Hills. This formed a fertile cienega or swamp, at the location where present day Sunset Boulevard and Beverly Drive can be found.

To the South, at the foothill site, countless flocks of geese and ducks, bands of wild horses and herds of antelope ran aplenty. The Tongva (who the Spanish named the Gabrielino) tribe, who originally inhabited the nearby area considered it a holy site and named it "The Gathering of the Waters," which in the Spanish language is "El .Rodeo de las Aguas." 

El Rodeo later became the name of one of the four elementary-level schools in Beverly Hills. The start of the Hispanic invasion of Beverly Hills was marked by Gaspar de Portolà's arrival. His land expedition arrived in the area on August 3, 1769.

Portolà's group, composed of (the first governor of the province of California), some Franciscan friars and a posse of Spanish soldiers and their horses, traveled over an Indian trail (part of what would one day be called Wilshire Boulevard), across the plain toward the foothills gouged with deep canyons, and made camp under the shade of the sycamore trees where the La Cienega Park is presently located, near the large swamp.

It was Portolà's group that had people first thinking that the future site of what will be known as Beverly Hills is a very habitable place to live in. Simultaneous with Mexican Independence in September 27, 1821, New Spain became Mexico and the province of California quietly changed flags.

Sometime during that era, a retired Spanish soldier, who was by now an invalid on a pension, Vicente Ferrer Valdez, and his wife, Maria Rita Villa de Valdez, went to live on the 4,500 acre (18 km²) Rancho El Rodeo de las Aguas.

For aesthetic reasons, the couple chose to rename the ranch and call it San Antonio. The Valdez adobe home was built near the area where you presently find the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Alpine Drive.Hundreds of  vaqueros (or cowboys) were employed to tend the cattle and horses. Valdez died in 1828, leaving Rita a widow with eleven children. In 1831, the mayor of the town of Los Angeles, Vicente Sanchez, granted to Rita, jointly with Luciano Valdez (her kinsman), a tract of land named San Antonio. Soon thereafter, she began disputing with Luciano Valdez.

In 1834, Rita complained before the Los Angeles City Council that Luciano was guilty of several offenses:
1. He built his house within 70 feet (21 m) of hers, obstructing the view from her own house.
2. He ran her cattle off the only watering hole on the rancho, which sent them wandering over the neighbor's property.
3. Luciano kept her from planting and dared her to complain.

During the arduous process of their trial, Luciano was noted to have been a very ill-mannered man.
The council agreed and ordered him to vacate the premises. In 1840, the land grant was confirmed by the governor of California, Juan Bautista Alvarado. Four years later, Rita built a second home. This she built on the future premises of Main Street in Los Angeles. She then kept her title papers and grant in her 2nd house. Before the Americans commanded by Commodore Stockton entered the city in 1846, Rita, her children, and other Californians, fled. When she returned, she found her papers had been stolen. On September 9, 1850, the territory known as California was admitted as a state of the United States of America. At this time the United States Board of Land Commissioners confirmed Rita Valdez' title. However, before that happened, Rita tired of Indian raids on her livestock and sold the rancho in 1854 to Benjamin D. Wilson and Henry Hancock.

Hancock sold out to William Workman, who planned to grow wheat. But after one successful season, the drought of 1863–1864 put a temporary end to farming in the area. The legendary and previously considered holy waters dried up, crops withered and cattle died. An oil boom brought back interest in the land in 1865 when the Pioneer Oil Company bought the rights to drill wells. But the oil prospecting ended when the land proved as devoid of oil as a freshly soaped tabletop.

When the oil rush died down, the newcomers arrived and herds of sheep appeared on the land. At this time, James Whitworth bought a 125 acre (0.5 km²) parcel between what became Robertson and La Cienega Boulevards, north of what became Pico Boulevard. Edison A. Benedict built a home in 1868 too at the mouth of the canyon that bears his name. Benedict and his son, Pierce, bought adjoining land, planted walnut trees, beans and other vegetables and raised bees.

Also in 1868, Dr. Edward A. Preuss purchased the ranch, less the 125 acres (0.5 km²) to Whitworth, from Wilson and Workman. He later sold half interest to Francis P.F. Temple to form a corporation for a subdivision. Preuss and Temple deeded their land to the corporation and the De Las Aguas Land Association was formed with headquarters in San Francisco. Nearly the entire ranch was divided into 75 acre (303,000 m²) farming lots with the center reserved for the "Town of Santa Maria," which was to be split into five acre (20,000 m²) lots to be sold at $10 each. The proposed main street of the town was Los Angeles Avenue, which is today Wilshire Boulevard.

The plans did not reach fruition that year though as another drought came, and the dream of Dr. Preuss crumbled into dust as the land reverted to sheep ranching. Henry Hammel and Charles Denker, owners of the United States Hotel in Los Angeles, then purchased the land. Lima beans were the only crop to flourish, along with the sheep, but their ultimate dream was to establish a subdivision called Morocco. During their ownership in the 1880s, there was a land boom and a steam train brought buyers from Los Angeles to Santa Monica, passing through the Hammel and Denker Ranch. A station named Morocco, with a town of the same name was shown on the map of 1888, but the station and the town existed only on paper. The land boom collapsed, taking their plans along with it.

In 1900, the land was purchased by the Amalgamated Oil Company. They drilled several wells, only to have their drill bits gather dust above and below ground.

By 1906, the property passed into the hands of the Rodeo Land and Water Company, with Burton E. Green as head of the development company.

Green and the new corporation hired a landscape architect, Wilbur D. Cook, who designed a town with large lots for homes and wide curving streets, to be lined with palm, eucalyptus, acacia and other variety of tropical trees. Cook also created a three block long, eighty-foot wide greensward along the north side of Santa Monica Boulevard called Santa Monica Park. When trying to decide on a name for the town they were about to build, Burton Green happened to read a newspaper article that mentioned Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, and as he read, it struck him that Beverly was a pretty name. He suggested the name Beverly Hills to his associates and it was accepted.

The names of the streets, Crescent, Canon, Beverly, Rodeo, Camden, Bedford, Roxbury and Linden Drives, Carmelita, Elevado and Lomitas Avenues, and Burton Way, appeared on a map for the first time on January 23, 1907, when the subdivision of Beverly Hills was filed at the County Recorder's Office. On November 15, two lots on Crescent Drive were sold to Henry C. Clarke and he built a home. During 1910, after the financial panic of 1907-1908 had blown over, land sales were in full bloom and houses began to dot the landscape.

The Beverly Hills Hotel was built in 1912 and immediately became the center of social life in the area. Church was held in the hotel on Sunday all formal social affairs were conducted in the grand ballroom brides had to be married in the hotel and the only motion picture theater was located there. Mrs. Margaret Anderson, well known in Los Angeles hotel circles, was brought in from the Hollywood Hotel as manager.

A streetcar line ran down the middle of Sunset Boulevard from Los Angeles through Hollywood. This would later feature as a central divider in future buildings.

By late 1913, with a population of 550, there were fifty more residents than needed to incorporate. On January 28, 1914, Beverly Hills was incorporated. 1915 saw the first land annexation to the city. Street lights and fire equipment were purchased and the tax rate was fixed at $1.00 for each $100.00 of assessed valuation.

In 1919, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford bought land on Summit Drive and built Pickfair, the house that would remain Pickford's home after she and Fairbanks divorced for the rest of her life.

Other wealthy movie people followed them and settled in Beverly Hills. Land titles soon began changing hands so quickly. Will Rogers, a wisecracking political humorist, wrote of the land boom in 1923, "Lots are sold so quickly and often out here that they put through escrow made out to the 12th owner... They couldn't possibly make out a separate deed for each purchaser. Besides, he wouldn't have time to read it in the 10 minutes' time he owned the land."

Beverly Hills as a movie colony was well entrenched by 1928 when Harold Lloyd built his mansion in Benedict Canyon, followed by John Barrymore, Robert Montgomery and Miriam Hopkins. Thus, Beverly Hills became famous for being home to the rich and socially elite and for the large, stylish mansions of famous movie stars.

The population in 1920 was 672 in 1924, it was 5,000 by 1930, it was 17,429. The issuance of building permits in 1918 totaled $35,200 in 1919, $304,900 in 1921, $787,729 1922, $1,838,994. In early 1920, the Beverly Hills Speedway, a 1.25 mile wood oval track with turns banked 35 degrees, which was built at a cost of $500,000 on the south side of Wilshire Boulevard between Beverly Drive on the east and Lasky Drive on the west in Beverly Hills, was opened.

Joe Boyer ran his race car 110 mph during the exhibition run. The races drew huge crowds and radio broadcasts were on a par with today's Indianapolis 500. There were also some aviation shows, another national craze. The speedway was closed in 1924 and the site was later used for housing and businesses.

In 1923, annexation to the City of Los Angeles was proposed, but received opposition. Residents Mary Pickford, Will Rogers and others mobilized local voters against the plan. Those for annexation argued that Los Angeles would provide an adequate supply of better quality water for growth. Workers left bottles of sulfur-smelling water on the doorsteps of every home in Beverley Hills with a label that read: "Warning. Drink sparingly of this water as it has laxative qualities." Despite the campaign tactics, annexation was defeated 507 to 337. The following year, the city voted $400,000 in bonds to purchase the water system from the Beverly Hills Utilities Company and drill additional wells. This fight for an independent city was arguably the first union of show business and politics in the United States. When Will Rogers became involved in local city government the community received international advertising.

In 1925, long before Ronald Reagan became governor or Clint Eastwood became mayor of Carmel, Rogers was given the title "Honorary Mayor of Beverly Hills," which was the first and only time anyone has been so honored. That same year, the citizens of the city voted a $100,000 bond issue to purchase with Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Venice 385 acres (1.6 km²) for the building of UCLA. There were ninety-six miles (154 km) of paved streets in the city limits by 1927. In 1928, the Beverly-Wilshire Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard between El Camino and Rodeo Drives, part of the old Beverly Hills Speedway, was completed. That same year, Greystone Mansion was completed by Edward L. Doheny, Jr., the only son and heir of wealthy oil man Edward L. Doheny.

In 1930, horses were banned in the City of Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills continued to grow. Promotional materials from the period touted the young metropolis as the "center of the next million years." Fortunately, human-scale public improvements helped soften the effects of growth. In the early 1930s, Santa Monica Park was renamed Beverly Gardens and was extended to span the entire two mile length of Santa Monica Boulevard through the city.

At its Santa Monica and Wilshire corner, the Electric Fountain, a constant symphony of form and color at night, was installed, with a small sculpture at the top of a Tongva Indian kneeling in prayer, homage to the heritage of Beverly Hills as a wellspring of fertility and abundance. The following year, 1932, a new Italian Renaissance-style City Hall was opened. The following year, however, the Depression hit Beverly Hills. The city and school board cut salaries to save funds.

In February, some 161 parcels of land were advertised for sale for delinquent lighting assessments. The Chamber of Commerce established an employment bureau and the mayor requested a branch welfare office from the County of Los Angeles. A huge celebration marked the City's dedication of the first United States Post Office in Beverly Hills on the April of 1934. This was followed by what was called Beverly Hills on Parade. After the great depression, sometime in 1937, Beverly Hills' economic movement was on the rebound with product sales that reached more than $20,000,000 and bank deposits topped the $25,000,000 figure. In the same year properties showed a 30% increase in value over the previous year. Construction contractors were having a field day as new buildings where sprouting all over with surprising regularity.

By the 1950s, contractors literally were moving mountains as whole mountains were cropped to give way to residential areas. The Trousdale Estates area was eventually annexed and an expensive housing development began to take shape in the hills above the city. Beverly Hills was advertised as one of the most glamorous places in the world to shop. The Golden Triangle was built and was announced as the shopping destination of a lifetime. In the middle of the Golden Triangle was Rodeo Drive.

In 1990 the Via Rodeo was completed. It was the first new street in Beverly Hills in seventy-six years. This cobblestone street leads to 2 Rodeo, a "mini-mall". The tradition of being a premier shopping destination up till today as Rodeo, Beverly, and Canon Drives all recently underwent construction to widen the sidewalks and beautify the streets. New construction has also just been completed that added more parking for visitors to the famed shopping area.

In 1992, the Beverly Hills Civic Center was built. It links the new public library, fire and police departments with the historic City Hall, as it was designed by Charles Moore.

While the city is known as home to the rich and famous and it is true that many actors, writers, directors and producers live in the city and take part in civic life many professionals, doctors and lawyers, have homes and offices in the city also.The dominant politics is overwhelmingly liberal Democratic, and the city has a strong Jewish and Persian community. The Beverly Hills Unified School District, with its four K-8 schools and the Beverly Hills High School, boasts particularly high academic achievement. The city's image has been enhanced by being featured in television shows and movies set in Beverly Hills, including the The Jack Benny Program (1950 to 1954), The Beverly Hillbillies (1962 to 1971), the Beverly Hills Cop movies, and Beverly Hills 90210 (1990 to 2000). At one point there was even a movie titled Beverly Hills Ninja by Chris Farley. 90210 is a ZIP code in Beverly Hills, made arguably the most famous ZIP code in the world by the television series Beverly Hills 90210. (West Beverly Hills High School is a fictional high school.) Ironically, most of 90210 actually lies within the city limits of Los Angeles.

However, the U.S. Postal Service considers all addresses in that ZIP code to be Beverly Hills addresses. Real estate agents designate these adjoining areas "Beverly Hills Post Office" or “Beverly Hills adjacent." Beverly Hills also has two additional ZIP codes based on the general area. These ZIP codes are 90211 and 90212. Beverly Hills has a total area of 14.7 km² (5.7 mi²), all land.

In spite of the city's name, most people in Beverly Hills do not live in the hills. In fact a large part of Beverly Hills resident live in the flat area of Beverly Hills which we will call the 'flats'. The flats include all of Beverly Hills south of Sunset Blvd. The homes in the hills, north of Sunset, have a much higher than average value than the rest of Beverly Hills, and the most expensive homes in Beverly Hills are all in the hills.

The flats are divided into two areas: north of Wilshire Blvd. and south of Wilshire Blvd., locally know as "(North or South) of the tracks" referring to the train tracks that were once used by the old Redline stockcar that went down Wilshire Blvd. through Beverly Hills. Unlike the rest of Beverly Hills, homes south of Wilshire have more urban square and rectangular lots, and the lots are generally smaller. There are also more apartment buildings south of Wilshire than anywhere else in Beverly Hills, and the average home value south of Wilshire is the lowest in Beverly Hills. Except for the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Beverly Hilton Hotel, all businesses and government offices in Beverly Hills are located south of Santa Monica Blvd.

Beverly Hills Today
As of the census of 2000, there were 33,784 people, 15,035 households, and 8,269 families residing in the Beverly Hills. For every square kilometer of Beverly Hills land, there are about 2,300.50 people or (5,954.0/mi²). There were 15,856 housing units at an average density of 1,079.7/km² (2,794.4/mi²). Beverly Hills is predominantly White at 85.06% of the population being Caucasoid, 1.77% Black or African American, 0.13% Native American, 7.05% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 1.50% from other races, and 4.46% from two or more races. 4.63% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. Some estimates put the Persian community population as high as 20%. For every 100 females there were 83.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 79.4 males.

Contrary to the concept that Beverly Hills is home to the affluent who can afford to buy their own homes, there are so many renters in Beverly Hills. So much so that homeowners are not the majority. Renter-occupied housing units comprise more than half of the city's housing stock - 56.6 percent. The median household income for renter-occupied housing units in the city is $48,179, which is just slightly above average for the entire United States.

The overall median household income is $84,197. About 7.9% of families and 9.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.5% of those under age 18 and 7.9% of those age 65 or over.

Despite its reputation, 90210 is not the wealthiest ZIP code in the United States or even California (the wealthiest ZIP code in California is 94027, generally in Atherton, California, the wealthiest ZIP code in the United States is 33139, which is in Miami Beach, Florida). In fact, Beverly Hills has the lowest median household income of any city with a population over 10,000 and median housing costs over $1,000,000. Other places generally considered to be very wealthy such as Newport Beach and Laguna Beach display the same characteristics.

Of the 21,426 registered voters in Beverly Hills approximately 50.3% are Democrats and 25.9% are Republicans. The remaining 23.8% either declined to state political affiliation or are registered with one of the many minor political parties.

Beverly Hills is a general law city governed by a five-member City Council including the mayor and vice mayor. City Council hires a city manager to carry out policies and serve as executive officer. Every odd-numbered year either two or three members are elected by the people to serve a four-year term. Each March the City Council meets and chooses one of its members as mayor and one as vice-mayor. Most of Beverly Hills is served by Beverly Hills Unified School District. The district's sole high school is Beverly Hills High School. Some of Beverly Hills is served by Los Angeles Unified School District.

Beverly Hills also has several private schools including Good Shepherd Catholic School, Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy, Emanuel Academy of Beverly Hills, and Page Private School.

Beverly Hills has the following newspapers in circulation: the Beverly Hills Courier, Beverly Hills Weekly, and Beverly Hills 213 Magazine. The Beverly Hills Post used to be one of the main newspapers, but it went out of business.

Beverly Hills Landmarks
The following landmarks and interesting spots can be found in Beverly Hills:
Beverly Gardens Park
Beverly Hills High School
Beverly Hills Hotel
Beverly-Wilshire Hotel
Electric Fountain
Greystone Mansion
Greystone Park
La Cienega Park
Pickfair
Roxbury Par

DR. JOHN CHAVES
5312 Comercio Lane, Suite A
Woodland Hills, CA 91364
Phone 818-999-2707
Fax 818-703-1998
appointment@cosmeticdentalservices.com