Beverly Hills is surrounded by the cities of Los Angeles and West Hollywood.
Originally a Spanish ranch where lima beans were grown, Beverly Hills was incorporated in 1914 by a group of investors who had failed to find oil, but found water instead and eventually decided to develop it into a town. By 2013, its population had grown to 34,658.
Early history
Gaspar de Portolá arrived in the area that would later become Beverly Hills on August 3, 1769, travelling along native trails which followed the present-day route of Wilshire Boulevard.
The area was settled by Maria Rita Quinteros de Valdez and her husband in 1828. They called their 4,500 acres (18 km2) of property the Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas. In 1854, she sold the ranch to Benjamin Davis Wilson (1811–1878) and Henry Hancock (1822–1883). By the 1880s, the ranch had been subdivided into parcels of 75 acres (0.30 km2) and was being rapidly bought up by anglos from Los Angeles and the East coast.[10]
Henry Hammel and Andrew H. Denker acquired most of it and used it for farming lima beans. At this point, the area was known as the Hammel and Denker Ranch.[9] By 1888, Denker and Hammel were planning to build a town called Morocco on their holdings.
20th century
Hammel and Denker ranch, c. 1905
In 1900, Burton E. Green, Charles A. Canfield, Max Whittier, Frank H. Buck, Henry E. Huntington, William G. Kerckhoff, William F. Herrin, W.S. Porter, and Frank H. Balch, formed the Amalgamated Oil Company, bought the Hammel and Denker ranch, and began looking for oil. They did not find enough to exploit commercially by the standards of the time, though. In 1906, therefore, they reorganized as the Rodeo Land and Water Company, renamed the property "Beverly Hills," subdivided it, and began selling lots. The development was named "Beverly Hills" after Beverly Farms in Beverly, Massachusetts and because of the hills in the area. The first house in the subdivision was built in 1907, although sales remained slow.
In the late 1990s, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) proposed to build an extension of the Metro Red Line along Wilshire Boulevard and into downtown Beverly Hills, but the city opposed it.
In the midst of the 2015 drought, Beverly Hills was found to be one of the biggest water consumers in all of California. As a result, they were asked by the state to reduce their consumption by 36%, prompting many residents to replace their lawns with native plants. Meanwhile, the city government replaced the grass in front of the City Hall with Mexican sage.
In September 2015, the City of Beverly Hills signed an agreement with the State of Israel to work together on water use as well as "cybersecurity, public health, emergency services, disaster preparedness, public safety, counterterrorism and art and culture".
In spite of the city's name, most residents live in the "flats" of Beverly Hills, which is a relatively flat land that slants towards the hills, and includes all of Beverly Hills itself. The houses situated in the hillside north of Sunset Boulevard have a much higher value than the average housing price for the rest of the city.
Along with the Los Angeles communities of Bel-Air and Brentwood, it is one of the "Three Bs", a wealthy area in the Los Angeles Westside.
Climate
Beverly Hills has a warm Mediterranean climate, with an average high of 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29.4 degrees Celsius) in August, and an average high of 67 degrees Fahrenheit (19.5 degrees Celsius) in January (source Weather.com). Beverly Hills also receives an average 18 inches (460 mm) of rain per year. Summers are marked by warm to hot temperatures with very little wind, while winters are warm to moderate, with occasional rain alternating with periods of Santa Ana winds. Measurable snowfall has been recorded only in 1882, 1922, 1932, 1949 and 1958.
Demographics
The 2010 United States Census reported that Beverly Hills had a population of 34,109. The population density was 5,973.1 people per square mile (2,306.2/km²). The racial makeup of Beverly Hills was 28,112 (82.4%) White (78.6% Non-Hispanic White),[6] 746 (2.2%) African American, 48 (0.1%) Native American, 3,032 (8.9%) Asian, 12 (0.0%) Pacific Islander, 485 (1.4%) from other races, and 1,674 (4.9%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1,941 persons (5.7%).
