Hollyridge Tales. Six years of weird in the Hollywood…
By: M. H. Rubin
Tags: Luck, Earthquake, Rockstar, Los Angeles, Hollywood

Hollyridge Tales

Photo from Los Angeles Public Library (Date unknown, circa 1924)

In 1924 the hip neighborhood development in Los Angeles was “Hollywoodland.” They put a big sign on the hillside at the top of Beachwood Canyon. They built adobe-and-red-tile-roof homes widely spaced along the smooth twisting roads they cut into the hills. Creston Drive wound its way toward the sign on the west ridge of the canyon, and Hollyridge was to the east.

Over the years more homes were added in-between and everywhere, even on the precarious pitches of dirt that earlier generations found too sketchy. Over the years the “-land” came off of the famous sign and it fell into disrepair before getting revived. Tiny shoeboxes on long stilts teetered up and down the hillsides. The other canyons of Los Angeles seemed to have more caché — Laurel Canyon, Topanga Canyon… but Beachwood was real and unpretentious.

I was excited to buy 2749, my first home. If you stood on the balcony you could see the Hollywood sign to the right, and to the left, beyond the gauntlet of the canyon, you could see downtown and Century City and on especially clear days you could see the ocean. I think that happened twice.

Grant’s House and the Spanish Prison

I first noticed Hollyridge from Grant’s balcony on Creston. My friend Grant lived almost directly opposite my house on the other side of the canyon. On many evenings, we’d sit on his little porch with our feet on the railing, passing around a pipe, and looking out over the hillside constellations of lights. Our friend Thomas — who had introduced us — lived further up the street, and it just made sense that I rent a house a few doors down. These were the only people I knew in town.

Groggy mornings with Grant on Creston (Rubin, 1987)

Grant shared the house with another Kiwi, Dave “The Guru.” Dave was a director of low-budget feature films (notably “Death Warmed Up, New Zealand’s first horror film) but acquired the nickname “guru” through his pioneering use of ayahuasca with groups he’d bring to the house.

Grant was an energetic conversationalist. His official work was as a screenwriter (he was working on a movie with Cheech Marin called Shrimp on the Barbie) although his job never seemed to define him.

If Grant had to run down to the Beachwood Market, he’d jump into his yellow ’58 Caddy DeVille, and often return with two or three others — just a few people he met standing in the checkout line. Grant was a provocateur, and he’d figure out what made you most uncomfortable and delightfully needle you to get you to open up about it. Your pimple. Your failed marriage. Your abortion. It bordered on cruel, and yet it was always done with just so much lightness.

Grant and Dave’s three-story house was the epicenter for a range of songwriters and musicians and of course anyone visiting Hollywood from the South Pacific; on any given night there were Australians sleeping on the sofa or Kiwis in the guest room. I’d stop by after work and there was always something happening. Always.

When we would go to parties, Grant didn’t like it when a stranger’s first question was “what do you do?” He didn’t want to talk about what he did. Consequently he’d often introduce himself as a theoretical physicist, or a veterinarian, or a chef…and he’d just talk convincingly, or not so convincingly, about whatever insane thing he was thinking.

In that same vein, without telling me, Grant would whisper to people we’d meet at parties that I was heir to the Twist-tie fortune. People treated me strangely. He’d do this often. I always enjoyed tagging along with Grant and Thomas. My hazy recollections include pulling into a recording studio in the middle of the night to take drugs with some rock band and then continuing to Beverly Hills to visit more friends. I lay in the back of the DeVille, listening to zydeco on the tape deck and playing with the inflatable guitar he kept there.