Beverly Crest, Los Angeles, CA

Beverly Crest sits on the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains, a hillside part of Los Angeles that runs along Mulholland Drive between the Beverly Hills flats and the Valley. The canyons do the organizing here, with Coldwater and Beverly Glen carrying most of the traffic up and over the ridge. Homes are almost all single-family and set into the slopes. Streets like Beverlycrest Drive date to a 1920s subdivision, and later decades added midcentury post-and-beam houses, ranch homes on ridge lots and large modern rebuilds with glass walls facing the city or the Valley. Gated enclaves such as Beverly Park hold some of the biggest estates. Open space is close on every side. Franklin Canyon Park has a small lake, the Sooky Goldman Nature Center and trails through oak and sycamore. Fryman Canyon and the Nancy Hoover Pohl Overlook sit along Mulholland with views across the Valley, and the Laurel Canyon dog park is a short drive east. Beverly Glen Circle is the neighborhood's small village center. Herb Alpert's Vibrato Grill Jazz books live jazz most nights in a room with a floor-to-ceiling fireplace, and Il Segreto and Fabrocini's cover Italian. Beverly Glen Deli and the Beverly Glen Marketplace handle sandwiches and grocery basics, and there is a coffee shop in the same center. Everything else means driving down the hill. Big grocery runs head to Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks or Studio City, or south to Beverly Hills. Commutes depend on the canyon roads, which back up at rush hour whenever the 405 jams. Beverly Crest sits in a very high fire hazard zone, and brush clearance, evacuation routes and insurance are part of owning here. Most streets have no sidewalks, so walks mean trails or the shoulder of a quiet road. On a clear morning from the Mulholland overlooks, the whole Valley floor spreads out below the ridge.