Garden of Allah (building)

Garden Of Allah (building)

The Garden of Allah was a famous apartment complex in West Hollywood, California, on Sunset Boulevard between Crescent Heights and Havenhurst, at the east end of the Sunset Strip.

Although built in a Spanish-Moorish style of architecture, it derived its name not from Islam but from stage and screen actress Alla Nazimova, its original owner. Originally known as The Garden of Alla, it was a single mansion at 8080 Sunset Boulevard, built in 1919. It became notorious for the wild parties allegedly held there by the openly lesbian Nazimova.

As her acting career declined, Nazimova built a complex of 25 villas around the main building in 1927. The complex had the address of 8152 Sunset Boulevard. Though Nazimova later sold the property, she continued to live in one of the villas on the grounds.

The Garden of Allah became home to many celebrities and literary figures. F. Scott Fitzgerald lived there for several months in 1937-38 at the beginning of his final sojourn in Hollywood. (He wrote himself a postcard while there: "Dear Scott -- How are you? Have been meaning to come in and see you. I have living at the Garden of Allah. Yours, Scott Fitzgerald.") Humorist/actor Robert Benchley was a frequent resident. Fitzgerald's biographer and lover Sheilah Graham later wrote a book about the place called The Garden of Allah (New York: Crown, 1969).

Though it was among the landmark buildings of the west side of Los Angeles, it was torn down in June 1959 and replaced by a bank with a strip mall behind it. Actor Francis X. Bushman and his wife, who had been at the opening party, attended the closing party as well.

It has been widely rumored that it was the destruction of the Garden of Allah and its replacement with a strip mall and parking lot, that inspired the famous line in Joni Mitchell's song "Big Yellow Taxi", "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot." Mitchell lived in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles, which is next to the former site; however Mitchell stated in an interview, published in the Los Angeles Times in 1996, that it was inspired by the view from her hotel room in Hawaii.

"...on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart."