A Guide to the Best of Soputhern California : LANDMARKS : Around the World in L.A.

There’s a whole world out there just waiting to be discovered, and, unlike Columbus, you don’t have to journey very far to see it. In a region as kaleidoscopic--culturally, architecturally and topographically--as Southern California, you can turn the corner and be continents away. So, if lack of time or money is keeping you from distant shores, do what many Hollywood production companies do--take that trip around the world right here.

For an enveloping, unmistakably Asian feeling, make your way to the Japanese Tea House at Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge. Walk along the tranquil koi pond and you’ll feel as if you’ve crossed the date line even before you cross the red Shinto bridge. A plethora of Far East flora surrounds you, obliterating anything that’s recognizably Angeleno. The teahouse, designed and built in 1966 by architect Whitney Smith, hangs together without nails; its blue glazed roof tiles were custom made in Nara, Japan. Nearby is a gift shop built to resemble a minka, or Japanese farmhouse, complete with an outside wash basin where water runs out of bamboo pipes. 1418 Descanso Drive, La Canada Flintridge; (818) 952-4401.

Perhaps a more appropriate name for Beverly Hills’s Via Rodeo would be Anystreet, EEC. Any high-class shopping street, that is. This gently curving thoroughfare, part of the Two Rodeo project, with its hand-set granite cobblestones and shifting facades, has the feel of London’s New Bond Street or Paris’s Rue Faubourg Saint-Honore. Also very un-L.A. is the way it invites that most alien of Southland activities, strolling. And while Hollywood seems keen on making use of the Rodeo illusion, reality keeps getting in the way. “All these production companies want the location for extended periods of time,” explains Two Rodeo spokesperson Alex Auerbach. “‘But you try telling Tiffany’s to close for a week.” 2 Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills; (310) 247-7040. If you’re looking for a true inner-city oasis, see the exotic Angeles Abbey in, of all places, Compton. The 69-year-old mausoleum, modeled somewhat on the Taj Mahal but with plenty of Middle Eastern and Byzantine touches as well, looks more like a seductive Arabian Nights vision than a final resting place. Rather than fly production crews halfway around the world, Hollywood has made frequent pilgrimages to the Abbey. Its spacious and proximate grounds have stood in for far-flung places across the Near and Middle East and North Africa. When crews for the short-lived ABC series “The Company” needed to shoot a scene set in Kuwait, for instance, they used this facsimile--the real Kuwait had been overrun by Iraq. 1515 E. Compton Blvd., Compton; (310) 631-1141.

Inside the Old Mill (El Molino Viejo) in San Marino it’s straight California Mission style. But the exterior--the way the bricks peer through the cracked mortar as you stand on the brick patio, next to the clay fountain, flanked by the pomegranate trees--brings to mind those old WWII movies where the Allies hold off the Germans in a villa in Anzio, waiting for reinforcements. Kellogg’s recently used the site, built in 1816 as a grist mill for Mission San Gabriel, in a commercial for its natural Eurocereal, Mueslix. “What we needed was to re-create a wonderful European feeling,” says Klaus Lucka, the director for LuckaFilm, the West Hollywood company that shot the ad. “And we only had to travel to San Marino.” 1120 Old Mill Road, San Marino; (818) 449-5450.