Sunset

Set above the Sunset Strip, this steel-construction house in the Hollywood Hills West area designed by architect Hagy Belzberg blends contemporary and traditional styles. The lower-level bedrooms open to the pool terrace, while the master suite makes up the entire second floor. Location: 9243 Cordell Drive, Los Angeles 90069 Asking price: $3.595 million Year built: 1956/2000 House size: Three bedrooms, 31/2 bathrooms, 3,650 square feet Lot size: 9,329 square feet Features: Ocean and city views, loft, media room, service entrance, alarm system, hardwood floors, fireplaces in the living room and master bedroom, central air conditioning, four off-street parking spots About the area: In the first quarter, 32 single-family homes sold in the 90069 ZIP Code at a median price of $1.672 million, according to DataQuick.

Night flatters the Sunset Strip. At sunrise, dead cockroaches line the sidewalk outside the famed Whisky a Go Go. Bus exhaust fills the air. The sound of crunching metal echoes off the buildings as deliverymen roll up the back panels of their trucks, making their morning drops. Filmmaker Adam Shankman is posing for a photographer on the corner of San Vicente and Sunset at 10 a.m., trying to give his best rock 'n' roll face, though he readily admits his edge is as sharp as a butter knife.

First published on Oct. 30, 2011. Revised and expanded in early 2012. Set an out-of-towner loose to roam the Los Angeles area between West Hollywood and Koreatown, and what can you expect? A food-truck overdose, perhaps. Or the bold suggestion that we extend our subway system westward. (Hey, we're working on it.) Or maybe just your basic Asian-Russian-Latino-gay-vegetarian-barbecue-automotive-modernist-tar-pit-chili-dog weekend. In other words, it's a trip worth taking, and a great way to catch the city in the act of reinventing itself, from the Japanese department store that's now a car museum to the Jewish avenue that's now a skateboarder haven.

Alternative rock band Lido Beach is used to getting a pretty rowdy crowd when it plays at the Roxy, so it was quite a change of pace when the band was planted in the RH restaurant at the Andaz Hotel in West Hollywood. "It was definitely a lot more sedate than we are used to," lead singer Scott Waldman says with a laugh. "At least people were tapping their knives and forks to the music. " Welcome to the new music destination on the Sunset Strip. Instead of beer-soaked floors and wall-to-wall sweaty bodies, think hip décor, classy cocktails, fashion-forward small plates and, oh, yeah, some pretty cool music.

A dying man's request is nothing Henry and Wanda Sandoz take lightly. So when the sick and elderly Riley Bembry asked the couple nearly 30 years ago to maintain a memorial and a cross atop a lonely outcropping in the middle of the Mojave Desert long after he was gone, they had to say yes. The Sandozes never anticipated that their stewardship would take them one day to the Supreme Court, nor did they anticipate ever seeing a cross — Bembry's legacy,...

Community volunteer David Nott had taken middle school students on an urban hike through Silver Lake before, but they stumbled across something unexpected during a recent excursion - a roughly 11,000-square-foot area designed just for people on foot. "Look!" Nott said to the handful of 11- and 12-year-old students, pointing to the newly built pedestrian- and bike-only Sunset Triangle Plaza. "This has become a social environment," he said. Billed as Los Angeles' first "street-to-plaza" conversion, much of the new park originally was a two-lane swath of pavement that carried motorists along Griffith Park Boulevard.

"When the revolution happened" are the first words we hear in "Shahs of Sunset," a new Bravo reality series about the Persian Americans of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills — six of them anyway, and their glimpsed families and supporting-cast friends. The revolution referred to is the one that took place in Iran in 1979, which helped create the sizable diaspora whose local chapter, sometimes called Tehrangeles, comprises the largest Iranian community outside of Iran. The novelty of the setting aside, we have been here before.

Golnesa Gharachedaghi talks like a real soon-to-be housewife of Beverly Hills. The 30-year-old self-proclaimed Persian princess, who doesn't shy away from confrontation or dropping expletives, explains her simple tastes. "There are two things I don't like. I don't like ants, and I don't like ugly people. " Another time, the young woman who says she is eager to settle down offers a guiding principle of her active night life: "Looking good, and not repeating outfits, is imperative.

Construction is underway on a potential Hollywood landmark, a high-rise college on Sunset Boulevard where students will live and study the arts. Boston-based Emerson College, which has trained many in the entertainment field, is erecting a striking see-through building that will be its new West Coast campus. The $85-million tower, designed by Los Angeles architect Thom Mayne, is intended to make a statement to the community and the entertainment industry, President Lee Pelton said.

Mandana Dayani of "The Rachel Zoe Project" and her husband, TV executive and producer Peter Traugott , have sold their Sunset Strip-area home for $1.5 million. The traditional-style house, built in 1952, was designed for indoor-outdoor entertaining. The living room opens to a terrace on the main level, and the lower level to a swimming pool with spa. The master bedroom features dual walk-in closets, a den and a bathroom for a total of three bedrooms and 21/2 bathrooms in the 2,240-square-foot house.