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| "HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
George and Gertrude Lewis were from a wealthy San Francisco society family. Their wealth and unusual marriage enabled the Lewises to create "Hill Grove", one of the most beautiful and most storied estates in the history of Beverly Hills. The Lewises had what was known as a modern marriage. They didn't live together most of the time, and they didn't interfere with each others personal... activities.
When the Lewises built "Hill Grove", Benedict Canyon was still mostly rural and largely empty of residences. Ranch land and a few citrus groves were located on the lower, flat terrain, and patches of chaparral and clusters of live oaks dotted the steep, arid hillsides. Benedict Canyon Drive was a dirt road.
Upon its completion, ten-acre "Hill Grove" was a startling sight. Its grand wrought-iron gates, which stood on dusty, unpaved Angelo Drive, opened into a long, paved driveway that wound up the hill to the mansion, passing the swimming pool near the bottom of the property and the expansive, grassy lawns, which required a team of gardeners for constant watering and care.
For an estate of its architectural distinction, extensive grounds, and prominent location. Hill Grove nonetheless received almost no public notice upon its completion in 1925. Why? George and Gertrude Lewis-in true, blue-blood fashion-did not actively seek publicity for the estate. They didn't need to get press coverage by showing off their home, or to send out publicity stills to newspapers and magazines to increase the adulation of their fans. They weren't a part of the Hollywood hierarchy.
But they were starstruck. Or at least Gertrude Lewis was.
They came to her estate, and, no, she was not a powerful producer or director, or the financial backer of films.
From the early 1920s to the early 1950s, Gertrude Lewis’ sprawling 10-acre 'Hill Grove' estate—and her very grand Tudor mansion—was a favorite shooting location for films, and later some early TV shows. Why did Gertrude Lewis rent out Hill Grove as a movie location so frequently? She wasn't hard up for cash.
Gertrude rented the estate for locations, then donated the fee to several charities helping the poor.
The real reason was that she got to meet each decade’s leading stars and watch the filming of major motion pictures. Gertrude Lewis had plenty of time for this 'hobby'. Her husband, George, who owned Shreve & Co., the famed San Francisco jeweler, lived in the family’s San Francisco house.
He enjoyed the life of a bon vivant. Herb Caen, the noted San Francisco Chronicle columnist, told some of the stories.
George Lewis, wrote Caen, 'who owned the most beautiful women in town, was a good man to know: If he took a liking to you, gold baubles floated your way.' Another time, Caen wrote: 'Millionaire George Lewis, silver Champagne bucket at left elbow, ravishing ‘keptive’ at right, presiding over his sycophantic circle at the old Templebar.
They knew how to keep women in those days: Nob Hill penthouses and open charge accounts, cinq-a-sept and off to Amelio’s for Bill’s peerless martinis.' Gertrude Lewis obviously knew about her husband, and obviously, she did not care.
She had her Beverly Hills estate, traveled to Europe for a year at a time, and enjoyed meeting all the stars at her estate.
Was Gertrude also entertaining men-friends at her home away from her husband’s prying eye?
Like several great Benedict Canyon estates, 'Hill Grove' was demolished and its grounds subdivided in the 1960s.
Today, 'Hill Grove', which had been such a prominent Beverly Hills landmark for so many years, and which appeared in so many films, has vanished entirely, except for a street named Hill Grove, which was one of the estate’s driveways." Haute Living — Los Angeles
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| "HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
Pictured at the front gate of the estate are Laurel and Hardy and Jacquie Lynn (the child) in a scene from Pack up Your Troubles.
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| "Manhunt of Mystery Island" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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Wayne Manor - "Batman & Robin" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| "HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| Wayne Manor - "Batman & Robin" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| ENTRANCE COURT RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| "HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| "HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| Larrabee Mansion - "Sabrina" (1954 film) RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| "HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| Larrabee Mansion - Sabrina (1954 film) RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| Larrabee Mansion - Sabrina (1954 film) RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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"HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| TERRACE RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| "HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| "HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| LIVING ROOM RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| "HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| "HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| "HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| DINING ROOM RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| VIEW INTO LIBRARY RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| LIBRARY RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| "HILL GROVE" RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| BEDROOM RESIDENCE OF MR. GEORGE LEWIS, BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA ALBERT FARR, ARCHITECT. J. FRANCIS WARD, ASSOCIATE |
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| Kids Boots (1926) |
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| Betty Co-Ed (1946) |
"Hill Grove" also appeared in Republic's King of the Newsboys (1938), starring Lew Ayres and Helen Mack; The Crooked Road (1940); You Belong to Me (1941), starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda; and Night and Day (1946), a completely fabricated Warner Bros, bio-pic of composer Cole Porter starring Cary Grant as the apparently heterosexual composer and Alexis Smith. The estate appeared in Monogram's 1932 film Police Court.
George Lewis sold Shreve & Co. in 1948. According to Herb Caen, "George Lewis had to retire from running Shreve's jewelry store, because he doled out so much of the stock to pretty ladies. Square-cut, pear-shaped, they all looked alike to George"
