This golden nugget of L.A. real estate is only a vision for most people who consider themselves average—not anywhere near rich enough to afford such houses or even work in that area, hence the term ‘gold coast’. It also happens to be where all those big car companies such as Mercedes Benz have their showrooms.

So that’s where all the rich people live—right? Actually, no. The description of these residences as ‘mega-mansions is a little misleading, since some are actually smaller than average houses elsewhere in L.A., especially if you compare them to the mansions elsewhere in L.A., such as those in Hancock Park or even Beverly Hills.

The houses are big, but the streets are wide and curvy. Some streets are wooded, some streets are dotted with trees, native California plants that are drought-resistant and low-maintenance. They’re not old Californian oak trees—those don’t grow here since it’s too sunny and the ground is too warm—but young trees planted by landscapers so rich people can feel like they live in a park.

The homes are often just next door to each other, and that’s how it has been for decades: always next door and then another and another and another…and you wouldn’t believe just how many mansions there are in the Corridor.

Sitting on top of a hill, you can see them all: the pastel-colored mansions with their clean lines and sharp edges. They’re modern for this area—you won’t find any Victorian-style houses here—and they blend right into each other. When you look at these houses from afar, they’re almost indistinguishable from each other.

They’re all massive—most of the houses in the Corridor are two, three, or four stories high and often more than 10,000-square-feet (929 sq. m) —and every year some new celebrity moves into one. But you won’t see any celebrities out on the sidewalks or on the streets around here, since this is a very quiet and peaceful neighborhood. And if you’re looking for celebrities, this isn’t the place to come either: they’re shielded from public view by steel gates and high walls made of bricks or hedges. Sometimes only the tops of their gates are visible from far away, which makes all houses look alike, and it doesn’t help that many houses on the Corridor were built more than a hundred years ago using the same architectural style: Spanish Colonial Revival.

Though most of them are open on the south side, which has wide views of the ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains, they’re closed to outsiders—in some cases, you can see through the windows, but you can’t see inside.

Some have pink tile roofs, others are surrounded by fountains and Spanish tiled courtyards with arches. Many of the houses today are painted in soft hues, but some retain their original colors—yellow or orange stucco with white trimming—a reminder of another time.

The homes were built during the 1920s and ’30s, for many newly arrived white Protestants eager to leave their downtown mansions for what they perceived as a safer environment. The new immigrants who moved into these houses were Jews escaping Hitler’s persecution in Europe or Mexicans displaced by the Mexican Revolution. Other residents included Japanese Americans sent to internment camps during World War II. Today, many of those who live in this area are from Central America or South Korea. Despite a history of change and a melting pot of cultures, the Wilshire Corridor remains an enduring symbol of Los Angeles’ heritage as a city with open arms to new immigrants.

Over time, as immigrants settled in the Wilshire Corridor and made it their permanent home, those mansions were turned into single-family houses. People of means moved to other parts of Los Angeles for bigger and more expensive homes with backyards and views.