{"id":479499,"date":"2026-09-29T16:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T16:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/479499\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T16:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T16:32:09","slug":"how-the-rodeo-drive-committee-came-to-celebrate-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/479499\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Rodeo Drive Committee Came to Celebrate 50 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Los Angeles\u2019 looks back at the origins of how the famed shopping district came to be<\/p>\n

Romanoff\u2019s, the Brown Derby and The Luau were some of the most famous restaurants on the West Coast and the chic celebrity hangouts of 1940s and \u201950s Beverly Hills. All were on the three blocks of Rodeo Drive between Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards, forming the heart of what\u2019s been dubbed the Golden Triangle.<\/p>\n

There was a time when locals could wave to neighbors like Gregory Peck and Jimmy Stewart as they went to buy shirts at Carroll & Company or fill up at the Standard Station. The Anderton Court Shops building that housed the Rodeo Coiffures beauty parlor was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.<\/p>\n

\"JuliusJulius Shulman photography archive, 1936-1997.Credit: Julius Shulman<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reminded me of Palm Springs,\u201d says Marc Wanamaker, author of Early Beverly Hills. \u201cIt was like an oasis of beautifully designed stores down to the smells and look of everything. In the \u201950s, Uncle Bernie\u2019s Toy Shop had trains on the ceiling and a giant fantasy tree where you could push a button and lemonade came out. The London Shop was like stepping into England and just walking around felt like entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n

All that changed, seemingly overnight, around 1968. \u201cThe whole street became a disaster zone,\u201d Wanamaker says. \u201cIt was a strange time with the rejection of capitalism, Vietnam War marches and all the hippie stuff . With the whole climate of protest, not enough people supported those stores.\u201d In the 1970s, we reported the Carroll & Company men\u2019s shop enticed bargain hunters with free coffee and sweet rolls and discounts of up to 50% off .<\/p>\n

Giorgio founder Fred Hayman launched the Rodeo Drive Committee in 1977 to reinvent and upscale the street, and Los Angeles has documented the evolution ever since. By 1979, we\u2019d dubbed it the \u201cFifth Avenue of Los Angeles.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"FredKing of the Hills: Neighboring shops were gobbled up as Fred set his sights on expansion.Credit: Courtesy of Fred Hayman Archives<\/p>\n

Wanamaker cites the Iranian revolution as the spark that reinvented Rodeo Drive. Wealthy refugees from Iran poured into Beverly Hills, changing its economics. \u201cThere were empty stores everywhere until Bijan showed up,\u201d the longtime Beverly Hills resident says of the iconic retailer. \u201cBijan and the Iranians changed the whole area. It was transformed into something international.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scroll to continue reading<\/p>\n

The first Prada, Versace and Fendi stores were franchises run by \u201cmom- and-pop people,\u201d realtor Gilbert Dembo told Los Angeles in 2021. These global companies gradually displaced local shops through the \u201980s, and today, rents have soared to $70 per square foot, making the street one of the most expensive in America.<\/p>\n

Rodeo Drive of the 1990s is immortalized in the film Pretty Woman when Julia Roberts goes on a shopping spree there, and by the end of that decade, European apparel powerhouses lined the street: Herm\u00e8s, Gucci, Armani, Louis Vuitton and Yves Saint Laurent. In 2004, boutique owner Herbie Fink pointed to Cartier and told our reporter he remembered when it was a gas station.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really don\u2019t regret any changes,\u201d Hayman told Los Angeles in 1991. \u201cThe past was charming, but if I want charming, I go to Larchmont Village.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Los Angeles\u2019 looks back at the origins of how the famed shopping district came to be Romanoff\u2019s, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2029,48,52,51,47,50,49,32917,181676],"class_list":["post-479499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-beverly-hills","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-rodeo-drive","tag-september-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}