HALLIE EPHRON: It's WHAT WE'RE WRITING WEEK, and I have not been writing. Instead I’ve been traveling and talking about about Night Night, Sleep Tight.
The book takes place in Beverly Hills, and I just 
got back from the
nicest ever trip to Southern California. I almost wrote “trip back in time” but it
really can’t be back in time, because while we New Englanders like to preserve
our landmarks, those Southern Californians are all about making it bigger and
better and adding parking garages.
When I grew up there (BEFORE there were zip codes), I never thought about whether the houses were big or not. I loved the whitewashed stucco walls, the orange tile roofs, the enclosed courtyards with their lush tropical green, a showy orange and blue bird of paradise tucked in here and there. Each house ended only a few feet of a wall or densely planted hedge that separated it from its neighbor.
In Beverly Hills, latitude equated to status. There was really a right and wrong side of the railroad tracks that ran right through town.
got back from the
nicest ever trip to Southern California. I almost wrote “trip back in time” but it
really can’t be back in time, because while we New Englanders like to preserve
our landmarks, those Southern Californians are all about making it bigger and
better and adding parking garages.When I grew up there (BEFORE there were zip codes), I never thought about whether the houses were big or not. I loved the whitewashed stucco walls, the orange tile roofs, the enclosed courtyards with their lush tropical green, a showy orange and blue bird of paradise tucked in here and there. Each house ended only a few feet of a wall or densely planted hedge that separated it from its neighbor.
In Beverly Hills, latitude equated to status. There was really a right and wrong side of the railroad tracks that ran right through town.
Above Sunset, way north in the canyons, houses were big sleekly modern in the gated estates.
That’s where big stars like Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra and Charleton Heston lived. Just above Sunset lived TV greats like Lucille Ball and Jack Benny.
 |
| Our house in 1967 |
Below
Sunset, in the “flats” where we lived, the houses were more modest. My parents were screenwriters and our neighbors were Carl Reiner (he was writing for Your Show of Shows) and David Janssen (TV actor: The Fugitive).
 | |
| Our house in 2013 | Add caption |
South of Wilshire the houses grew smaller still until there were multi-family apartment complexes surrounding concrete courtyards. It was almost like some force of nature was at work, siphoning away anything organic and replacing it with dust and cement. Looking at them now, those less wealthy neighborhoods look cozy and the houses and apartments go for millions.
The house my parents sold in 1967 for $100K and sold in 2014 for $7M. Yes, SEVEN MILLION, a number I can barely wrap my head around. And the house isn't an inch bigger than when we moved out.
Almost nothing I remember from growing up in Beverly Hills remains. No Robinsons or Bullocks or Lanz where I spent hours trying on clothes I didn’t buy. Or Jax, the fancy women’s clothing boutique that I was too timid to walk into. The old Beverly Hills Library in the north wing of the city hall is gone; the new library where I spoke is gigantic, gorgeous, and new
No Hamburger Hamlet (for Those Potatoes or an Oak Plank) with its wonderfully hokie dioramas hanging over each booth with "scenes" from Hamlet, as in "Get thee to a bunnery!" No Bifs where I spun around on a stool at its one counter and sipped chocolate malteds.
No Wil Wrights ice cream on south Beverly Drive or C. C.
Brown’s hot fudge on
Hollywood Boulevard. I wonder what happened to the cow mural on the wall of 31 Flavors. I tried to pay a nighttime visit to the Electric Fountain which figures prominently in my book and is still there! But it was walled off and being renovated. And "the witch's
house" which was just down the block from us was still standing, though much more buffed and polished than I remember it.Only DuPars at the Farmer's Market looked exactly like it once did, and though parking isn't the breeze it once was, their pancakes with real maple syrup are still delicious.
Still there, though, were some cherished friends. Leonora who became a torch singer and then a Rolfer; or Christie who was the world’s best elementary school teacher and now volunteers at the school she retired from; or Jodyne, an attorney who manages the shopping centers her dad opened when we were kids; or Tony who wrote for the high school newspaper with me and is now a judge and a writer.
I was glad to get back to Boston where, like Beverly Hills, it’s the people not the places that make it feel like home.
Can you go back and visit the places from your childhood, or like me, do those exist only in photographs and memories?
