Why Nobody Wants to Visit Beverly Hills, California Anymore

In 1912, the Beverly Hills Hotel opened its doors in the middle of a lima bean field — two years before Beverly Hills even existed as a city. From that moment, the place was selling a dream before it had anything real to sell. This is the story of how a failed oil venture became the most famous zip code in America, how Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford turned a real-estate development into a global myth, how one man named Fred Hayman transformed Rodeo Drive from a street of gas stations into the second-most expensive luxury shopping district on Earth, and how a French conglomerate quietly spent over $900 million buying it all. It is the story of a city whose brand became so valuable that the brand no longer needs the city — where rents hit record highs and the population keeps shrinking, where grand hotels and billion-dollar developments rise while storefronts on Wilshire Boulevard sit empty, and where the pink building on Sunset Boulevard still glows in the afternoon light, waiting, as it always has, for someone to believe. Sources: Beverly Hills Historical Society — Beverly Hills History (beverlyhillshistoricalsociety.org) LAist — "How Beverly Hills Became — and Stayed — an Independent City" (2018) The Hollywood Reporter — "The Man Who Made Rodeo Hot" (2011) CoStar News — "Rents Jump on LA's Famed Rodeo Drive Despite Global Luxury Sales Decline" (December 2024) Vernon Proper — "LVMH's Over $900M in Rodeo Drive Real Estate Ushers in Age of the Big Box Boutique" (November 2025) Cushman & Wakefield — Main Streets Across the World annual retail rent report (2024)