Rodeo Drive's flagship boutiques and palm trees, with the cobblestone loop of Two Rodeo Drive at the south end.
What The Golden Triangle looks like
Santa Monica Boulevard, Wilshire Boulevard and Canon Drive mark the three sides of the Golden Triangle. Rodeo Drive runs through the middle, and its own three blocks between Wilshire and Little Santa Monica Boulevard are usually what the name means.
The street was platted in 1906 and stayed an ordinary strip of hardware stores and gas stations for decades. Frank Lloyd Wright's , built there in 1952, still stands.
Fred Hayman's Giorgio Beverly Hills opened on the street in 1961, often called its first high end boutique. , the curved cobblestone alley off the main street, opened in 1990. A 2003 renovation added the palms that line the street now and the , a run of sidewalk plaques near Dayton Way.
Pretty Woman's Rodeo Drive scenes were shot on the real street, at real stores. Vivian is turned away at , on the corner of Rodeo Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard, then comes back with shopping bags to prove the staff wrong. In between, she has a shopping spree at a second store, a that then stood a few doors up at 408 North Rodeo Drive. closed for a full day of filming, and the production borrowed its own bags to dress extras outside. later moved a few blocks over to Beverly Drive. Chanel owns the old Valentino building now.
The Beverly Wilshire is the real hotel in the film, but only from outside. The production asked to film inside and was turned down, so the hotel scenes were built elsewhere. The production designer, Albert Brenner, says they went up inside the recently closed Ambassador Hotel. Other accounts, including the hotel's own history, say they were built on a soundstage at Disney Studios in Burbank instead. The two do not agree.
Beverly Hills Cop used the same street for Axel Foley's driving arrival in the city, past storefronts that are still there.
Films shot in The Golden Triangle
Pretty Woman's Rodeo Drive scenes were shot on the real street, at real stores. Only the Beverly Wilshire's rooms were somewhere else.
Pretty Woman, 1990
Vivian is snubbed at , on the corner of Rodeo Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard, then returns later with shopping bags to prove the staff wrong. Both scenes were filmed at the real store, which closed for a full day. The production borrowed 's own bags to dress the extras outside. The successful shopping trip in between was filmed a few doors up, at a then at 408 North Rodeo Drive. later moved a few blocks over to Beverly Drive. Chanel owns the old Valentino building now.
Pretty Woman, 1990
The Beverly Wilshire is the real hotel in the film, but only from outside. The production asked to film in its rooms and was turned down, so the etiquette dinner and Edward's suite were built somewhere else. The film's production designer, Albert Brenner, has said those interiors went up inside the recently closed Ambassador Hotel. Other accounts, including the hotel's own history, say the rooms were built on a soundstage at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank instead. The two versions do not agree.
Beverly Hills Cop, 1984
Beverly Hills Cop opens Axel Foley's arrival in the city with a driving montage down North Rodeo Drive, between Wilshire Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard. The storefronts in the shot are real, the same ones a driver passes on the street today.
What The Golden Triangle can double for
Architectural comparison · present day
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Las Olas Boulevard
One of Rodeo Drive's boutique buildings is cut in cream stone, with an arched window over a curved stone staircase. Las Olas Boulevard is lined with Mediterranean Revival buildings from the postwar building boom that use the same arched doorways and terra cotta roofs, now holding galleries and boutiques instead of their original storefronts. A tight shot on that arched Rodeo Drive building, framed away from the street's straight palm median and 's cobblestone alley, could plausibly work for a Las Olas storefront today.
Las Olas mixes its Mediterranean Revival buildings with plain modern storefronts and glass towers near the Intracoastal end, so an unbroken run of period facades is hard to find there. Keep 's cobblestone and anything as tall as the Rodeo Collection out of frame, since Las Olas stays low.
Architectural comparison · present day
Marbella, Spain, Puerto Banús
Puerto Banús was built in 1970 as a purpose-built luxury shopping district of low, whitewashed Andalusian buildings around a yacht harbour, the same way was built in 1990 as a purpose-built European-style alley with limestone and terra cotta facades. Puerto Banús has had storefronts for Chanel, Gucci and Versace. Those are the same names found along Rodeo Drive, so a tight shot on a single awning would not tell the two streets apart. Palm trees line Puerto Banús's promenade the same way they line Rodeo Drive's median.
Puerto Banús is built around its marina, so any shot that includes the water or the moored boats gives it away. Spanish signage and right-hand traffic markings would also need control wherever a storefront sign or a curb enters the frame.
Architectural comparison · present day
Palm Desert, California, El Paseo
The straight run of Rodeo Drive north of is a low boutique strip of one and two story buildings, with palm trees down both sidewalks and hanging flower baskets on the lampposts. El Paseo has the same low palm-lined profile. Some of the same stores are there too, including a Ralph Lauren under its own awning. A frame that stays low and leaves out the Rodeo Collection's taller colonnade and 's cobblestone could plausibly work for El Paseo today.
El Paseo sits under open desert sky with the San Jacinto foothills in view. Any wide shot that shows Beverly Hills' taller buildings or its palm canopy overhead would need to be avoided, along with the multiple stories around the Rodeo Collection.
.JPG)
.jpg)
