Lady Diana Manners and Iris Tree arrived on January 24, 1927, as part of a national tour of The Miracle, staged at the Shrine Auditorium. Diana, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Rutland, played the Madonna; Tree, a nun. The Times dispatched a reporter to the Garden, where he found Diana lunching on her villa terrace with Tree and producer Morris Gest.
“Entrancing,” Lady Diana wrote in her diary. “A tiny whitewashed village of two- and three-roomed Spanish houses, fountains and a swimming pool.” But dinner – served cold by 20 jade-clad Chinese servers -left her unimpressed. Los Angeles fared worse: “I hate this town, hate it, hate it!”
Meanwhile, Mrs. Vincent Astor and Mrs. Harriman Russell checked in after a stay at Pebble Beach. United Artists chairman Joseph Schenck and his movie star wife, Norma Talmadge, introduced the Astor party to Mexican cuisine at a luncheon. Among the celebrity guests were British aristocrat Lady Diana Manners and Hollywood royals John Barrymore and Mary Pickford and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
In April, an advertisement for the hotel appealed to well-heeled tourists:
“Plan to sojourn this Summer at the Southland’s most unique and extraordinary residential hotel and villas. In the heart of the Motion Picture Capitol. Wonderful luncheons and dinners. Magnificent Swimming Pool. Bridge, Horseback Riding, Golf Privileges.”
In her 1970 book, The Garden of Allah, Sheilah Graham compiled recollections about the Garden’s early residents. Actress Bessie Love recalled living there in 1927, with neighbors like Edmund Lowe, Lilyan Tashman, and Jean Acker Valentino, the first of Alla Nazimova’s two protegees who married Rudolph Valentino. Ronald Colman rented a villa despite having recently purchased a home in the Hollywood Hills. H.B. Warner, fresh off playing Jesus in King of Kings, was instructed to live like Christ -no smoking or drinking while he relaxed by the pool.
Graham’s recollections were secondhand and often inaccurate. She claimed that Greta Garbo lived at the Garden, although biographies of the Swedish star make no mention of it. It’s possible she may have regularly stopped by to swim in the enormous pool.
Nita Naldi, a vamp in the Nazimova mold, lived next to novelist Louis Bromfield, whose Early Autumn won the Pulitzer in 1927. Bromfield hosted poker games with Irving Berlin, Joe Schenck, Darryl Zanuck, and Sid Grauman. Buster Collier lived at the Garden; Buster Keaton and Constance Talmadge were his frequent visitors. Ramon Novarro, who officially lived at home with his mother, rented a villa where he entertained his male lovers. Ernst Lubitsch, directing The Student Prince, was his neighbor.
Perhaps the biggest celebrity resident was Clara Bow, the “It” Girl, who leased a bungalow in the fall. She shared her Beverly Hills home with her father, who disapproved her raucous partying. At the Garden, she hosted Young Hollywood – Joan Crawford, Buddy Rogers and Carole Lombard. Musicians from the Biltmore Hotel played jazz until dawn. Songwriter Nacio Herb Brown – who would one day write “All I Do Is Dream of You,” “Good Morning,” Singin’ in the Rain,” “You Are My Lucky Star” and other hits from movie musicals – often complained about the noise, but the party never stopped.
Until, it did.