October 25, 2011

The Greystone.

Saturday afternoon I spent the day celebrating my friend Jenny's birthday pretending to be a real housewife of Beverly Hills. We lunched at Villa Blanca, grabbed dessert at Crumbs Bake Shop and then drove over to the Greystone Mansion.
Picture from 1928.
Prior to Saturday, I had never even heard of the Greystone Mansion. Wikipedia describes it as a Tudor-style 46,000 square foot home with 55 rooms sitting on 16 acres of land. And no, that's not a typo, it's actually 46,000 SQUARE FEET!! Holy moly, it's huge! I could fit my place in there 108 times over. Crazy!

Once we meandered our way from the parking lot, through stone walkways, and lots of steps (my Fitbit counted 12 flights total) we found our way to the main house! It's just beautiful and has such amazing architectural details!
I'd take this view in a heartbeat!
The former pool and it's wonderfully arched pavilion...
Here's what it looked like back in the day...
A beautiful fountain...
 via CocoCozy.

And gorgeous staircases...

This estate has been used in a ton of movies (like Witches of Eastwick and The Holiday!) and has a fascinating story behind it, too! The mansion belonged to oil tycoon Edward Doheny and was gifted to his son, Edward "Ned" Doheny, Jr., and his family in 1928. But after living there for only four months, Ned was murdered by his secretary, Hugh Plunkett. The story goes that Plunkett was angry over not receiving a raise and suffered a "nervous disorder" (not a good combination!) Either way he killed his boss and then himself! Kind of creepy, but fascinating!

Anyhow, I had a wonderful day exploring a part of Southern California that's just 30 minutes away! I should really do that more often!

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