Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition, and the Lust for Land in Los

Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition, and the Lust for Land in Los Angeles

Michael Gross is the preeminent chronicler of Americaâ€™s rich and powerful, most recently inÂ 740 ParkÂ andÂ Roguesâ€™ Gallery.Now, he goes west to uncover the very secret history of Los Angeles, specifically those wealthiest and most private of enclavesâ€” Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills, and Beverly Parkâ€”through their most mind-boggling estates, and the fascinating, fabulous folks who created and populate them.Â
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Gross begins his epic tale with the sordid mob-driven history of the newest mega-mansion district in L.A., Beverly Park, (home to among others Magic Johnson, Barry Bonds, Rod Stewart, Mark Wahlberg, Reba McIntyre, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, Samuel L. Jackson, Sly Stallone, Richard Zanuck, and relatives of an Indonesian dictator and Saudi Arabiaâ€™s king). He then flashes back to the creation of this fabled district, built on dusty lima bean fields and carved out of the rugged impassible mountains between the city and the sea. Using the century-long evolution from adobe huts to $100 million mansions as the baseline of the story, he reveals how a few powerful and often ruthless oil and railroad magnates imposed their idyllic vision of the good life on the Los Angeles landscape to create the legendary communities known as the Platinum Triangle.
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Gross goes on to give vivid, riveting accounts of the most lavish of the many lavish houses that started springing up almost immediately (with only a brief slowdown during the Depression). But the stories of these homes are just a window onto the lives of their owners and occupants over the course of the twentieth century, and onto the bigger story of a people and a storied region that have become, in Grossâ€™s words, â€œthe Mecca of self-invention.â€
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â As one might imagine, there is a truly glittering cast of characters. Apart from the many Hollywood stars who have passed through these housesâ€”Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Harold Lloyd, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, George Hamilton, Tony Curtis, Cher, to name just a fewâ€”you will meet decadent Spanish land-grant families, desperado oilmen and railroad titans, the countryâ€™s first all-powerful corporate legends, con men and pyramid schemers, porn magnates, and Arab potentates, not to mention contemporary tabloid luminaries from the worlds of business and entertainment. Taken altogether, their stories read like a cross betweenÂ Valley of the Dolls, Hollywood Babylon,Â and Grossâ€™s ownÂ 740Â Parkâ€”with a little of the filmÂ ChinatownÂ thrown in too.Â
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Los Angeles provides Michael Gross with his broadest canvas yet;Â Unreal EstateÂ will surprise, fascinate, and most of all entertain you with a story you donâ€™t know about a place you think you do.Â
Country USA
Manufacturer Broadway Books
Binding Hardcover
ReleaseDate 2011-11-01
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780767932653

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Broadway Books
Binding	Hardcover
ReleaseDate	2011-11-01
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780767932653

Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition, and the Lust for Land in Los Angeles

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