Brentwood Real Estate
Brentwood is one of the most prominent areas of Los Angeles’ Westside and among the wealthiest neighborhoods in all of Los Angeles. It is populated by celebrities, entertainment industry people, affluent professionals and political figures.
Brentwood real estate is an eclectic mix of home styles including Mediterranean, Tudor and Modern Architecture, grand gated estates, horse properties, condos and apartment buildings. The Brentwood neighborhood is a collection of many areas including Brentwood Circle, Brentwood Country Estates, The Brentwood Flats, Brentwood Highlands, Brentwood Park, Bundy Canyon, Mountain Gate, Kenter Canyon and Mandeville Canyon, among others.
Brentwood has prosperous commercial districts along each of its major east-west thoroughfares, including Wilshire Boulevard, San Vicente Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard. The area along San Vicente Boulevard offers a host of upscale restaurants and boutiques, including Toscana and Katsuya. Other Brentwood shopping districts can be found in Brentwood Village, near the intersection of Sunset and Barrington, as well as in the Brentwood Green. The Brentwood Country Mart, built in 1947, offers a collection local restaurants and shops. There is also a tented Farmer's Market held each Sunday on a strip of Gretna Green Way between Brentwood Science Magnet School and the Brentwood Country Club. The internationally renowned Getty Museum is also located in the hills high above Brentwood, North of Sunset Blvd.
Anyone looking for outdoor recreational opportunities in Brentwood will not be disappointed. The paths along San Vicente Boulevard provide the perfect backdrop for bikers, joggers and walkers, while Sullivan Canyon offers a host of hiking and biking trails in the Santa Monica Mountains. The Barrington Recreation Center is located in Brentwood and offers an indoor gymnasium, children's play area, picnic tables and a collection of baseball, soccer and football fields, as well as indoor and outdoor basketball courts. There is also a one and a half acre area designated as the Barrington Dog Park.
Brentwood is also home to a collection of top tier public and private schools, including Kenter Canyon Elementary School and Paul Revere Middle School, as well as The Archer School for Girls, The Brentwood School and Mount St. Mary’s College.
Contact David Kramer at 310-691-2400 for all of your Brentwood Real Estate needs.
Then and Now: 1940s Gangster Mickey Cohen's (Occasionally Exploding) Los Angeles Real Estate
Thursday, January 31, 2013, by Adrian Glick Kudler
In a special Whale Week event, Curbed LA is teaming up with Eater LA andRacked LA for an in-depth look at mid-century gangster Mickey Cohen: his (sometimes exploding) properties, the fabulous restaurants and nightclubs he frequented, and his seriously sharp suits. Here we go:
[Possible site of Cohen's first heist via LAPL]
Mickey Cohen was born in Brooklyn in 1913, but his widowed mother brought him to Boyle Heights when he was still a baby. According to a 1972 article inLos Angeles, he first started hustling at age three while working at a newstand: "His duties were to sit on the stacks of newspapers, protecting them from the winds and grabbing hands of Boyle Heights. Becoming aware of the valuables he was pinning down, Mickey started swapping them, furtively, for candy and hot dogs." He started making gin at age seven "in the rear of a drugstore" and meanwhile became a bit of a thug at Cornwall Elementary School ("He was to remain unable to read, write or count beyond five until in his twenties.") At nine, "He went on his first heist and held up the box office of the Columbia Theatre, using a cudgel as a persuader." The Columbia was originally known as the California, according to Downtown LA Theatres, which puts it on Spring Street (the site is currently a parking lot); the LAPL has photos of a California Theatre at Main and Eighth.
After doing some time at reform school, Cohen started training as a prizefighter: "He was fighting four rounders in his 12th year, and training forthese events in wild and bloody street corner combats with the vulpine youth of Boyle Heights." He went on the road, to Cleveland and Chicago, where he began to go full-gangster. In the late-'30s he returned to Los Angeles as something of an enforcer for kingpin Bugsy Siegel; after Siegel was killed (in a hail of bullets in his girlfriend's house in Beverly Hills) in 1947, Cohen became LA's top mobster (the LAPD's crusade against him is loosely chronicled in the recent Gangster Squad movie and more accurately in the book Gangster Squad by LA Times reporter Paul Lieberman).
[Slide to see before and after; before via LA Times]
While Siegel lived in Holmby Hills, the book Mickey Cohen: The Life and Crimesof L.A.'s Notorious Mobster says that fancy 'hood "was not a place for Mickey Cohen." He built himself a house on Moreno Drive in Brentwood ("hardly a mansion"); according to Gangster Squad, "he assumed [the neighborhood] was outside Los Angeles' borders." Oops.
His "postwar ranch consisted of seven moderately scaled rooms plus a maid's quarters ... It had been built, with no expense spared, to suit all the needs, whims, and rapidly growing obsessions of Mickey Cohen." Cohen worked "closely with a topflight decorator ... The interior design was tasteful and traditional. A monochromatic color scheme was used in each room. The living room featured soothing tones from celadon to spruce. The dining room palette was muted blues. In the den, the decorator acquired a library of classics for the barely literate mobster." It even had its own soda fountain (Cohen didn't drink, smoke, or do drugs).
He and his wife LaVonne had separate bedroom suites; Cohen's "was modern in design, done in masculine neutrals and complemented by natural leather and honey-colored wood. The bedspread was monogrammed with a giant MC." Cohen was a frequent washer (he appears to have had OCD) and had a"water-heating system large enough for a hotel" installed.
The house also had an LAPD bug in the living room, placed during construction by Vice detectives who slipped in posing as construction workers.
[Explosion aftermath via KCET]
On February 6, 1950, the house blew up. At 4:15 that morning, a bomb blasted "a ten-foot hole in the front bedroom where Mickey normally slept"; he happened to have been on his wife's side at the time and no one was hurt (a concrete floor safe also helped mitigate the damage). Cohen had actually found sticks of dynamite under his house months before, after which he tried to put up a fence; amusingly, he was thwarted by the zoning code, which (still!) only allows fences up to three and a half feet. The bombing was probably the work of rival gangster Jack Dragna.
In 1951, Cohen was put on trial for tax evasion. His house went up for sale for$47,500 and his stuff went up for auction. Cohen ended up in prison for a few years.
