This lushly landscaped six-acre estate crowning a hillside behind the Beverly Hills Hotel was a barren grassland when local department store heir Harry Robinson and his wife, Virginia, purchased it in 1911. It was the first residential lot sold in Beverly Hills. Inspired by a four-year honeymoon in Europe, the Robinsons erected a Mediterranean-style villa and elegant pool house surrounded by formal English and terraced Mediterranean gardens, including 50 varieties of camellias. An additional two-acre palm forest features the largest stand of king palms outside of Australia. Mrs. Robinson left the estate to Los Angeles County in her will, and the gardens and house opened to the public in 1982.