‘The genie is out of the bottle’ in Hollywoodland, which is experiencing a serious uptick in demand despite push-back from local residents
It’s 9 a.m. on an April Sunday, and Eric Smith is drinking tea, looking out over the city of Los Angeles from the balcony of his two-level, midcentury modern in a tree-filled, mountainous neighborhood called Hollywoodland—just a few hundred feet below the iconic Hollywood sign. The only moving object on the street is a coyote, skulking around the corner.
But he knows the peace won’t last.
Soon, hordes of tourists following GPS to the Hollywood sign will start clogging the windy, narrow thoroughfares. At the bottom of the hill, there’s already a line, largely composed of teenage girls, snaking down the sidewalk outside the Beachwood Café, made famous by its mention in the lyrics of the Harry Styles song “Falling.”
Eric Smith, a documentary director and photographer, on the balcony of his home in Hollywoodland.Photo: Adam Amengual for The Wall Street Journal
The cliff-like, and seemingly unbuildable, small lot next to Mr. Smith’s house was purchased for $305,000 by a developer from China. He worries there will soon be a big spec house there—something the neighborhood’s homeowner’s association can do little to stop.
“This place has been a refuge. There’s still a sense of community, and I feel fortunate to live here, but the genie is out of the bottle,” says the 50-year-old documentary director and photographer. He bought his 1,527-square-foot, two-bedroom house, where Peter Tork of the Monkees lived in the 1960s, in 2003 for $615,000 because it was an oasis of nature, yet still close to all the Hollywood studios.
Hollywoodland began as a 1920s real-estate development, famously advertised with an enormous, lit-up HOLLYWOODLAND sign in the hills above it. (In 1949, “Land” was dropped from the sign.) It was touted as a place where buyers could escape the stress, turmoil and “dangerous corners” of the city below without forfeiting easy access to work. Prices for lots ranged from $2,500 to $55,000 ($42,000 to $924,000 in today’s dollars).MORE