Watters shows that by the 1920s a Mediterranean revival style, sensitive to the climate and terrain, dominated the field. This volume contains an introduction to the changing social situation from a time when oil wells were pumping in Beverly Hills until Hollywood and aeronautics helped the city weather the Depression. In all, Watters, who teaches at USC's architecture school, discusses 80 homes, illustrated with 400 color (not seen by) and black-and-white archival photographs and floor plans, a valuable record of houses now mostly lost to later development. Short biographical profiles of the architects provide helpful information on the many unfamiliar names.