[Continuation of Secret Stairs (Part I) and Secret Stairs (Part II)]
The third and final leg of the journey to search for secret stairs in Hollywood took us to the Temple Hill neighborhood. There weren’t a lot of steps to climb (only 108 compared to the more that 300 in Whitley Heights), but there were many steep hills that could have used a few stairs to make the hike easier.
This is an area was once the home of various spiritual centers, including Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophists and the Vedanta Temple:
On Vine Way, we found this graceful and winding set of 47 easy steps:
snd these private steps:
We continued to Holly Mont Drive where we saw Hollymont Castle, once Barbara Stanwyck’s estate and now owned by pianist Derek Grey. We met a man who claimed to be Derek Grey’s twin brother, and he could have been, for all I know. He confirmed that the castle was haunted.
Across from the castle was a set of 61 steps that divided into two narrow stairways.
I was disappointed when the search for secret stairs ended for the day. I’ve never known that stairs could be so romantic. I’ve seen very few staircases in the past twenty years — there was no real need for them in the high flat areas I’ve lived, and whatever steps I encountered were banal, simply a way to get from one place to another. Now I will keep an eye out for stairways, and wonder about all who have set foot on those steps.
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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Follow Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.
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January 24, 2014 at 9:11 am
Thanks, Pat. I really enjoyed taking this adventure with you!!! Your last sentence says it for me, too!
January 25, 2014 at 11:52 am
There are a few stairways north of Sunset around Maltman Avenue. It’s where the street steeply ascends into the Silverlake neighborhood. I found the stairways fascinating. I don’t think many people know about these few because the area isn’t visited by tourists and the lower parts of this particular hill are shabby. The higher up you go the nicer it gets. At the very top of Maltman there was a spot where a flock of escaped parrots lived in the treetops.
January 27, 2014 at 3:04 pm
Wonderful, Pat. What a lot of fun that must have been. I grew up in Southern California, and I never knew these stairs existed.
January 27, 2014 at 8:49 pm
It was a special thrill hiking these stairways, knowing that most people didn’t even know they existed.