A Tale of Two Cities
Beverly Hills was once a cow pasture. It is amazing to look back in history and learn that some of the most expensive real estate on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California was once simple agricultural farmland. The city of Beverly Hills incorporated in 1914. It took until 1932 for a City Hall to be built. In 1934, Beverly Hills finally had a post office.
Beverly Hills attracted weekend spectators when a wooden auto racetrack opened. The radio broadcasts of the races during the 1930s were popular. Just because they built a racetrack did not impress all the rich elite.
Many of the wealthy from the Los Angeles area looked down their noses at anyone who built a home in Beverly Hills. It was so far away from the hubbub of activity in downtown Los Angeles. It took almost an hour to drive out to Beverly Hills using Wilshire Blvd at a speed of 15 MPH. Beverly Hills was out in the “sticks,” as far as the L.A. downtowners were concerned.
There was plenty of raw land in between downtown Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. Why Beverly Hills became the prized area is a bit of a mystery. One thing that helped make Beverly Hills a success is that the extremely popular commentator, Will Rogers, became the first mayor of Beverly Hills. Moreover, the adorable actress Mary Pickford was one of the city’s first residents.
One knows when an area has really made it is when there are television shows and films using the city’s name. In the case of Beverly Hills, we had the Beverly Hillbillies, Beverly Hills Cop, and a popular television show made about the Beverly Hills zip code “90210.”
Dallas and “Texas Tea”
Dallas was already a major city, way before Beverly Hills became popular. In 1907, the first Neiman Marcus store opened in downtown. In the same year to the north, J.S. Armstrong opened the exclusive shopping center of Highland Park.
The discovery of oil in 1930 by C.M. Joiner on the eastern side of Texas about 100 miles from Dallas, brought boom times to Dallas. The discovery was the largest oil deposit in the world at that time. The oil in the Arabian Peninsula would not be discovered until 1938. Even though there has never been a working oil well in Dallas County, the city of Dallas became the financing and technology hub for the oil business in America.
The Northwood Hills area is like the Beverly Hills area. Northwood Hills used to be cotton fields in the 1940s. It became a popular area for development in Dallas after the LBJ freeway was built, connecting it to the rest of the metropolitan area. The mansions in that area are super-sized and rival anything Beverly Hills has to offer.
The lack of movie starlets in Dallas was made up for by the abundance of petroleum. There was also a popular television show in the 1970s called “Dallas,” that featured the character J.R Ewing an oil tycoon, played by Larry Hagman, with his wife played by Linda Gray. That is when one knew that Dallas had “made it,” as a top American city.
Conclusion
Both of these major metropolitan areas had a similar development pattern. An exclusive area for homes developed far away from the city center and eventually became the most luxurious area with extraordinary, high-priced real estate. This same pattern happened in many other major American cities over the past century.
Real estate investors, who are land speculators, should take note of the pattern, when looking for the next Beverly or Northwood Hills.