View of Hollywood Blvd. (foreground) and the residential neighborhood behind it, including the hilltop Japanese estate and gardens of brothers Charles and Adolph Bernheimer, located at 1999 N. Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood. The Bernheimer Estate was built in 1914 to house the brothers' priceless collection of Asian treasures. In order to have an authentic Japanese design, hundreds of skilled craftsmen were brought from Asia to recreate an exact replica of a palace located in the Yamashiro mountains near Kyoto, Japan. The original Bernheimer structure included a 10-room teak and cedar mansion, where carved rafters were lacquered in gold and tipped with bronze dragons. Superbly landscaped Japanese gardens and a Sacred Inner Court in the center of the home filled with sculptured plants, pools and fish add to the Japanese character of the estate. The colorful hillside terraces included 30,000 varieties of trees, shrubs, waterfalls, hundreds of goldfish, and even exotic birds and monkeys. After the death of one of the brothers two years before this photograph was taken, the art collections were auctioned off. In the late 1920s/1930s, the estate served as headquarters for the exclusive Hollywood "400 Club," an organization for the elite of the motion picture industry. After WWII, the home was converted into apartments. Soon thereafter, Thomas O. Glover purchased the property and began the restoration of what was to become the Yamashiro restaurant. The large white apartment building in the left foreground is the Garden Court Apartments and the stylish Queen Anne mansion is the Rollin B. Lane Estate (now the Magic Castle).
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