Touring Pickfair: Golden Age Hollywood's Secret Headquarters

Video Description

Welcome to the shocking story of Pickfair, Golden Age Hollywood's most legendary mansion, where movie royalty once entertained kings and presidents before its devastating destruction erased nearly a century of entertainment history. Located at 1143 Summit Drive in Beverly Hills, this forty-two-room estate sprawled across eighteen acres and served as the crown jewel of early Hollywood real estate, earning recognition from Life Magazine as "a gathering place only slightly less important than the White House and much more fun." -------------------------------- Inside Sophia Loren's Secret Luxury Homes -- https://youtu.be/7Wxa2oRKTZU -------------------------------- Inside the MANSIONS That Built SANTA BARBARA California -- https://youtu.be/Un0wOPDU9_4 -------------------------------- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Introduction 0:56 Chapter 1: Hollywood Royalty's Palace on the Hill 5:05 Chapter 2: From Hunting Lodge to Hollywood Heaven 9:15 Chapter 3: The Social Epicenter That Defined an Era 13:44 Chapter 4: Pickfair’s Afterlife: From Starlight to Boardroom -------------------------------- Named by combining the surnames of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Pickfair began as a humble hunting lodge before architect Wallace Neff transformed it into a mock Tudor masterpiece that announced film's arrival as a legitimate art form deserving its own palaces. The mansion featured what was widely considered Los Angeles' first private in-ground swimming pool, where Fairbanks and Pickford were famously photographed paddling a canoe in an iconic image that defined Hollywood success for generations. Inside, guests discovered original Adam pieces, fine rugs, antique tables, and an impressive art collection including eighteenth-century English and French period furniture from the Barberini Palace and paintings by renowned masters. The estate grounds featured flowering gardens, koi ponds, tennis courts, stables, and an Old West-style saloon complete with an ornate mahogany bar showcasing twelve Remington paintings from 1907. From 1920 to 1936, Pickfair reigned as Hollywood's undisputed social capital, where dinner invitations represented the ultimate sign of importance and separated the merely famous from the genuinely influential. The couple's guest list transcended entertainment to include intellectual giants like Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Amelia Earhart, George Bernard Shaw, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, elevating cinema's cultural status through carefully orchestrated social gatherings. Royalty flocked to this American palace, including the King and Queen of Siam, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the Prince of Japan, and the King of Spain, demonstrating Hollywood's growing international influence. Mary Pickford mastered the role of hostess with legendary gatherings that included Olympic dinners, parties for World War One veterans, and countless evenings where politics, art, science, and entertainment converged in conversations that shaped the twentieth century. The golden era ended in 1933 when Mary discovered Douglas's affair with Lady Sylvia Ashley, leading to their 1936 divorce, though Pickford continued living there with her third husband Charles "Buddy" Rogers. A poignant moment came in 1976 when eighty-three-year-old Pickford received her second Academy Award in Pickfair's formal living room, giving television viewers their only glimpse inside the legendary estate. After Pickford's death in 1979, Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss purchased the property for 5.4 million dollars, preserving much of its character during his eight-year ownership. The estate's fate took a shocking turn when actress Pia Zadora and husband Meshulam Riklis bought it in 1988 for 6.7 million dollars, announcing renovation plans that proved far more extreme than anyone anticipated. In 1990, the Los Angeles Times broke devastating news that Pickfair had been largely demolished, with only the guest wing and part of the living room remaining after the historic structure was razed for a new Venetian-style palazzo. Zadora initially blamed termites for the demolition, later claiming supernatural encounters forced the destruction, but by then Hollywood's most historic residence had vanished, leaving only memories where kings once dined with movie stars. Today's Pickfair serves as a corporate meeting center, representing one of Hollywood's most significant architectural losses and raising uncomfortable questions about historic preservation in an industry built on constant reinvention.