Updated September 2026
Beverly Hills looks like it was built to be famous, but the city's real history has almost nothing to do with movie stars, and everything to do with lima beans, a failed oil well, and a Massachusetts beach town most people have never heard of. Below are nine facts about Beverly Hills that surprise even people who have lived here for years.
Key Takeaways
- Beverly Hills is named after Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, not for its "beautiful hills"
- The land was a lima bean farm before it was a city, and its first would-be developers were drilling for oil
- Rodeo Drive's famous shopping stretch covers only three blocks
- Beverly Hills is a fully independent city of 5.7 square miles with its own police and fire departments, completely surrounded by Los Angeles
- The city didn't exist as a residential community until the Beverly Hills Hotel opened in 1912, two years before incorporation
The Name Has Nothing to Do With the Hills
Most people assume "Beverly Hills" describes the terrain. It doesn't. Burton Green, the businessman who developed the town, named it after Beverly Farms, a coastal town in Massachusetts his wife favored. The "Hills" got added later to distinguish the new development from an unrelated Beverly Boulevard project already underway in Los Angeles. The name was a real estate branding decision from day one, which, fittingly, is still how the city sells itself.
Beverly Hills Started as a Lima Bean Farm
Before Rodeo Drive, before the Hotel, before Pickfair, the land under Beverly Hills grew lima beans. Rancher Maria Rita Valdez Villa held the original 4,500-acre Spanish and Mexican land grant, and by the 1860s the property had passed to Edward Preuss, who farmed it commercially. Preuss had bigger plans, an ill-fated attempt to found a German farming colony called Santa Maria on the site, but the beans paid the bills until the land changed hands again.
The City Exists Because a Group of Oil Prospectors Struck Water Instead
In the early 1900s, a group of investors, including Burton Green, formed the Amalgamated Oil Company and drilled the property hoping to strike crude. They hit an aquifer instead. Water, not oil, made the site viable for a planned residential community, and the company pivoted from drilling to developing. The original name for the land grant itself, "El Rodeo de las Aguas," is Spanish for "the gathering of the waters," so in hindsight, the water was always the point.
Rodeo Drive Is Shorter Than Its Reputation Suggests
The stretch of Rodeo Drive that appears in every postcard and film cameo, the one lined with Chanel, Cartier, and Louis Vuitton, runs for three blocks between Wilshire Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard. First-time visitors expecting a sprawling shopping district are often surprised at how compact and walkable it actually is. The scale is part of the appeal; nowhere else compresses that much retail density into three short blocks.
The Beverly Hills Hotel Predates the City Itself
Beverly Hills didn't incorporate as a city until 1914. The Beverly Hills Hotel opened two years earlier, in 1912, on what was then mostly open land and bean fields. Developers built the hotel first specifically to attract buyers to the surrounding lots, a marketing tool that worked so well it outlasted the marketing campaign. It remains one of the only structures in the city older than the city government itself.
Beverly Hills Is Its Own City, Completely Surrounded by Los Angeles
Beverly Hills covers about 5.7 square miles and is entirely encircled by the City of Los Angeles, yet it has never been part of it. It maintains its own police department, its own fire department, its own school district, and its own municipal water supply, separate from LA's systems on every level. That independence is why Beverly Hills can set its own zoning, permitting, and development rules, which matters directly to anyone buying or renovating a home here.
Local Tip: Because Beverly Hills runs its own permitting department separate from LA County, renovation timelines and requirements here often differ from neighboring areas like Bel Air or the Beverly Hills Post Office district. Buyers planning a remodel should confirm requirements with the city directly before assuming rules from a nearby zip code apply.
One City, Three Zip Codes
Beverly Hills splits into three zip codes: 90210 covers the area north of Santa Monica Boulevard, including Trousdale Estates and the flats below Sunset; 90211 covers the commercial core around Rodeo Drive; and 90212 covers the area south of Wilshire, sometimes called the "Beverly Hills Flats" or, depending on who's asking, "Beverly Hills adjacent." Only one of the three, 90210, became a household number worldwide, mostly thanks to a television show that used it as a title.
Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Started the Celebrity Migration
Beverly Hills didn't become a celebrity address by accident, and it didn't happen immediately either. Silent film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks bought a hunting lodge north of Sunset Boulevard in 1919, renamed it Pickfair, and turned it into the era's most famous private estate. Their arrival, five years after incorporation, pulled the rest of Hollywood's elite west with them, and the pattern never really stopped.
Public Art Around the City Is Deliberately Curated, Not Incidental
The sculptures and installations scattered through Beverly Hills' medians, parks, and civic spaces aren't decorative afterthoughts. The city runs a formal public art program that reviews and rotates pieces throughout its public spaces, treating art as part of the city's infrastructure the same way it treats streetlights or landscaping. Residents who assume the statues near Beverly Gardens Park are permanent installations are often surprised to find a different piece there a year or two later.
What This History Means for Anyone Buying in Beverly Hills Today
Beverly Hills built its identity around scarcity and control from the very beginning, a small, independently governed city that decided early on exactly what it wanted to be. That same instinct still shapes the market: strict zoning, a limited housing supply, and a city government that treats development decisions carefully. Buyers drawn to the history are usually drawn to the same thing that made Pickfair possible in 1919, a place with room to build something singular, minutes from everything.
Curious what a piece of that history is worth today, or ready to see what's currently available? Josh Flagg has represented buyers and sellers throughout Beverly Hills for over 20 years and can walk through the Beverly Hills market in detail.
