Beverly Hills Ca

I never thought I would stay in a hotel 4.1 miles from my house--and consider it a vacation. But then, I didn't know what arranging a getaway entails when you have a child under 2. It would take all the emotional preparation and strategic planning of a Normandy-style invasion. First there was the decision to go.

It may be the ultimate Beverly Hills teardown. British developers paid $500 million Tuesday for the once-grand Robinsons-May department store in one of the priciest property sales ever in Southern California. The buyers said they would proceed with the previous owner's plans to raze the store at 9900 Wilshire Blvd. and build a condominium and retail complex designed by Richard Meier, architect of the Getty Center.

Hundreds of majestic Canary Island date palms are finding themselves down and out in Beverly Hills. A fungus is killing the Phoenix canariensis trees that have served as a lush backdrop in countless movies and TV shows, from "The Beverly Hillbillies" to "Beverly Hills Cop." On more than a dozen streets in the self-anointed "Garden City," these once postcard-perfect trees are, one by one, fading like so many Hollywood has-beens.

There are million-dollar mansions in foreclosure, layoffs on Rodeo Drive. And reservations are no longer a must at all but the most exclusive restaurants. As recently as the summer, many wealthy Southern California enclaves appeared beyond the reach of the worst recession in decades. But rich cities, it turns out, aren't always so different from the rest.

Seventy-FIVE of us sit on the west side of the elegant, sun-dappled living room at Greystone, a 1928 mansion that's part of a Beverly Hills city park. A white-haired butler in black tie emerges from the hallway and begins intoning the sorrowful story of the famous family that once lived here.

A woman held in connection with the death of actor Mark Ruffalo's brother was released from the Beverly Hills jail after her attorney was able to convince police that his client was at the scene of the shooting but had nothing to do with it, the attorney said Wednesday. Scott Ruffalo, 39, was pronounced dead Monday night at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after suffering a single gunshot wound to the head Dec. 1 in his Beverly Hills apartment.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment has leased Creative Artists Agency Inc.'s former Beverly Hills headquarters, an I.M. Pei building that has a mural by Roy Lichtenstein in its 57-foot-high atrium. The group, a venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann, will move in by the end of the year, Michael Ovitz, a founder of the Hollywood talent agency and building owner, said this week at the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. Sony BMG spokesman John McKay declined to comment.

Joyce Rey stands in the soaring marble entryway of a palatial Bel-Air estate, ticking off its selling points. Master suites? There are five of them, along with three living rooms, a gymnasium and a library. The dining chamber is "embassy-size," and the pool and gurgling fountains are on par with those at the finest hotels. "There are six bedrooms under the tennis courts, and nine more above the 10-car garage," Rey tells a cluster of fellow sales agents scouting the place on behalf of clients.

Banners hung throughout downtown Beverly Hills this week announcing that "Dining is Now Smoke-Free." But Niloo, a longtime smoker and resident, said she was caught off guard by the outdoor smoking ban that took effect Monday. She was not pleased. "Nowadays it seems like a crime," she said, sitting outside the Koo Koo Roo restaurant on Beverly Boulevard. "I'm going to be moving out of Beverly Hills for my entertainment." California law prohibits smoking inside restaurants, cafes and bars.