Rodeo Drive /roʊˈdeɪ.oʊ/ is a two-mile-long street, primarily in Beverly Hills, California, with
Beverly Hills Fashion Shopping Streets.
Its southern terminus is at Beverwil Drive, and its northern terminus is at its intersection with Sunset
The name is most commonly used metonymically to refer to the three-block stretch of the street north of Wilshire
The larger business district surrounding Rodeo, known as the "Golden Triangle," which extends from Wilshire Boulevard to Santa Monica Boulevard, is both a shopping district and a tourist attraction.
In 1906, Burton E. Green (1868-1965) and other investors purchased the property that would become Beverly Hills, formerly named Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas, with plans for a mixed-use subdivision with a branch of the Los Angeles and Pacific Railway running North on Rodeo Drive before turning west at Sunset Boulevard.
They platted the street that very year, in 1906
By 1907, 75x160 foot parcels on Rodeo were selling for $1,100 each
It became a bridle path in 1912, when the Beverly Hills Hotel was built on a former lima bean field.
By November 1925, similar lots were selling for between $15,000 and $30,000, almost double what they'd been selling for in September.
Rodeo Drive street sign
The central part of Rodeo eventually became a business street with hardware stores, gas stations, beauty shops, and bookstores. In 1958, real estate developer Marvin Kratter bought 48,000 square feet of land at the corner of Rodeo and Wilshire Boulevard from the city of Beverly Hills
The acreage is across the street from the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and Kratter paid something over $2 million for it.
A Vector W8 parked in front of the Gucci store
In 1967 Fred Hayman, "the father of Rodeo Drive," opened Giorgio Beverly Hills, the street's first high-end boutique.
In 1968 Aldo Gucci opened a store on Rodeo, which catalyzed the process by which the street took on its present form.
Van Cleef & Arpels opened in 1969, followed by a Vidal Sassoon salon in 1970.
According to erstwhile co-chair of the "Rodeo Drive Committee" Richard Carroll, the transformation of Rodeo Drive into an international center of fashionable shopping was sparked in 1971 with the opening of a new wing of the Beverly Wilshire
In 1980 Carroll noted that before then "There was nothing at all of an international nature on the street. Rodeo was purely local in flavor.
In 1977 the Rodeo Drive Committee "launched a publicity campaign designed to make everyone around the world think of Rodeo Drive as the shopping street of the rich and famous.
The RDC wanted to make Rodeo Drive an economic engine for Beverly Hills and spread the image of a "culturally elite lifestyle.
In 1976, Bijan Pakzad opened a showroom on Rodeo, which helped to solidify "Rodeo Drive's reputation as a luxury shopping destination."
Pakzad touted his Rodeo Drive store as "the most expensive in the world," but, as Women's Wear Daily notes in relation to the claim, "he was known for hyperbole.
By 1978 the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce was boasting that Rodeo Drive was "the essence of the best of all the shopping centers of the world" and by 1980 the city of Beverly Hills estimated that the Rodeo Drive shopping district accounted for as much as 25% of its sales tax revenues.
The building at 332 N. Rodeo was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
International fashion
European-style buildings on Two Rodeo Drive
The "Rodeo Collection," a 45 store, 70,000 square foot shopping mall opened in 1983 at 421 N. Rodeo Drive. The building is only four stories high with the first floor below street level in order to satisfy local building codes.
The retail space initially leased for as much as $120 per square foot, which, according to an executive with commercial real estate firm Julien J. Studley, was "the highest price for any kind of space in the Los Angeles Area."
Two Rodeo Drive, another outdoor shopping center, was built in 1990. It initially housed, amongst other stores, Christian Dior and Valentino.
The original developer, Douglas Stitzel, sold the property for about $200 million immediately after its completion.
The shopping center was hard-hit by the early 1990s recession, with occupancy rates dropping to as low as 60%, and the buyers sold it at an almost $70 million loss in 2000.
By 2007 the property was financially stable again and was sold to a group of Irish investors for $275 million.
It resembles a “faux-European shopping alley” and features a cobblestone street
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