1436 Bella Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210

"Falcon Lair," the legendary nearly four-acre property tucked away on a quiet cul-de-sac in Beverly Hills with panoramic views. Once the playfield of the silent-screen's ultimate heartthrob Rudolph Valentino, then the refuge of billionaire heiress, Doris Duke, with a penchant for art and scandal, this property is the rare historical layering that makes Los Angeles mythology tangible. Here, Valentino galloped his stallions into the golden hour of the 1920s; later Doris Duke summoned jazz greats and poured champagne in velvet-lined salons. The estate is not just another property, it's a stage on which America's fantasy of excess and aspiration unfolded. Valentino purchased the estate in 1925, naming it "Falcon Lair" after the never-made film The Hooded Falcon. Within its walls Valentino filled the home with imported antiques, exotic furnishings and a stable for his Arabian horses, living up to his "Latin Lover" screen persona in real life. In the 1950s, tobacco heiress and cultural … read more …