Church Row : 3 Congregations Have Shared a Street and Slice of History Since 1920s

It has happened more than once, says the Rev. James Morrison, that a spectator or two ran out of the Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church just as the organist struck up the wedding march.

It wasn’t wedding-bell blues or something they ate. It was more a case of mistaken religious identity on a stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard where Presbyterians vie for Sunday parking spaces with Catholics and Episcopalians.

Part of an odd little Church Row in the heart of a city whose population has become predominantly Jewish, Morrison’s church backs up to All Saints’ of Beverly Hills, an Episcopal parish. Just a short walk away, the Roman Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd looms over a city-owned cactus garden.

The cacti are public property. So is the rest of Beverly Gardens, a strip of parkland where the churches provide an ecclesiastical backdrop for Rodeo Drive and the city’s high-priced shopping district.

But despite their setting in a park, title to the church grounds is held by each of the three congregations, whose history goes back to the early days of Beverly Hills.

It was in 1913, when the Rodeo Land & Water Co. was struggling to carve a prosperous suburb out of scrubland and bean fields, that a Methodist minister named Edward Funk held the first Sunday school classes over a row of shops in the commercial district.

His initial flock was surely small, because the community itself was minuscule; when census-takers made the rounds seven years later in 1920, there were still only 674 residents of Beverly Hills.

But the arrival of Will Rogers and the rest of the movie colony sparked a population boom (there were 22,000 residents by the end of the ‘20s), and in 1924, Rodeo Land & Water sold three plots of land for church use.

Documents on file at the Los Angeles County Hall of Records show that the plots were assessed at $2,200 each, but it is not clear if the properties were bought or given as a gift by the developers.

What evidence exists is less than clear-cut. Winston Millet, former president of the Beverly Hills Historical Society, remembers Burton Green Bettingen, daughter of city founder Burton Green, saying that her father told her that Rodeo Land & Water donated the properties.

But Morrison said he believed that the land was purchased, and Pat Wright, parish life coordinator at All Saints’, dug up a 1950 brochure in which founding members said they paid $8,000 for the site.

The Episcopalians had been meeting in what is now the Crystal Room at the Beverly Hills Hotel, under the leadership of the Rev. J. Arthur Evans, founder and former rector of St. Stephen’s Church in Hollywood.

“Dean Evans was such a fine man and gave so much of himself to this work, that some of us decided that it was absurd to hold the services in such a place,” Ralph M. Dyar, an early parishioner, recalled in the brochure.

At the time, there was no provision for the construction of churches in Beverly Hills, he said. Rodeo Land & Water, which has since disbanded, intended its suburb to be strictly residential.

Dyar said that Green agreed to sell the land, but only if the neighbors agreed to have a church on their block.

“That was something to achieve! For strange as it may seem, people do not seem to like to live right next to a church,” he recalled. “But that hurdle was overcome.”

Msgr. Francis J. Weber, archivist for the Catholic diocese of Los Angeles, said no records remain that would cast light on the transactions.

The deeds, preserved on film at the Los Angeles County Hall of Records, all include a Prohibition-era ban on the sale of intoxicating beverages.

The Catholic Church was the first to open its doors, dedicating its Mission-style sanctuary at the corner of Bedford Drive on Christmas Eve of 1924.

The Presbyterian church at the corner of Rodeo Drive was dedicated on Easter Sunday of 1925. So was the Episcopal house of worship at the corner of Camden Drive, which eventually outgrew the space and built a new building, dedicated in 1955. The old one, still used as a chapel, nestles in its shadow.

In the absence of a large Christian population today, the churches draw worshipers from as far away as Pasadena, Pacific Palisades and the San Fernando Valley, pastors said.

A fleet-footed celebrity watcher might do well to visit all three of a Sunday morning, although none of the ministers like to name-drop, at least in public.

“We’re not celebrity-studded, but we have some,” Morrison said. “It’s not because we sought them; it just happened that way.”

“Maybe that’s one of the reasons why people are attracted to this place,” said the Rev. Colm O’Ryan, pastor of the Church of the Good Shepherd. “Many of the stars were married here and buried here, and there’s a certain aura connected to the place. At one time, Bing Crosby lived in the parish, and Danny Thomas was buried from here, and there are still a number of celebrities who attend church. . . . Not many of them. They’re mostly gone now.”

One of his predecessors, Msgr. Daniel Sullivan, now-retired, names more: Gary Cooper, Jimmy Durante, Rosalind Russell, Jane Wyman, Dean Martin, Jane Russell, Loretta Young. Services were held there for Alfred Hitchcock and Rudolf Valentino, and Elizabeth Taylor was married there for the first time.

Jimmy Stewart is often seen at the Presbyterian church, where rock star Rod Stewart (no known relation) recently married model Rachel Hunter.

“It’s not unheard of, but it’s not something we really talk about,” said Brother Francis Andrew Phillips, executive assistant to the rector of All Saints’, where Fred Astaire, Dorothy Lamour and Harold Lloyd once adorned the pews.

“No more than 50% of our parishioners come from the immediate area,” he said. “We draw a lot from Hancock Park, the Westside, Pasadena and the valley. People tend to look for a parish where they feel comfortable and where the approach works for them.”

With two masses on a Sunday, All Saints’ draws about 525 people a week, he said, adding that the service offers a more traditional flavor than some other Episcopal churches.

Good Shepherd, scene of two masses on Saturday evenings and five on Sundays, draws even greater numbers to its sanctuary, which has room for 600 worshipers. The interior was renovated in 1960.

“I suppose the predominant group would be mostly older people,” O’Ryan said. “For some reason, a goodly number of our people come from outside the immediate area of the parish. Maybe they like the old church. There’s something devotional about it.”

Worshipers range from tourists to household help to heads of major corporations, Sullivan said.

“We don’t get so many movie people any more, just regular people. But you’ve got to have money to live in that area,” he said.

The Presbyterian church counts a membership of about 530, Morrison said, including veterans of the old Beverly Vista Presbyterian Church, which closed in 1972.

“It kind of dropped off back in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, and then it’s been pretty level for the last 15 to 16 years,” Morrison said. “At least we haven’t gone down in numbers, at a time when the whole Westside of Los Angeles is heavily Jewish in population.”

Prime Location for Beverly Hills’ ‘Church Row’

Three churches occupy sites in Beverly Gardens, a public park in Beverly Hills: Catholic Church Of the Good Shepherd, All Saints’ Episcopal and the Presbyterian Church of Beverly Hills. They provide an ecclesiastical backdrop for Rodeo Drive and the city’s high-priced shopping district. Despite their setting in a public park, title to the church grounds is held by each of the three congregations, whose history goes back to the early days of Beverly Hills.

* Catholic Good Shepherd

505 N. Bedford Drive. Architecture: Mission-style. Dedicated on Christmas Day, 1924. Interior remodeled in 1960. Two masses are offered on Saturday evenings and five on Sundays.

* All Saints’ Episcopal

504 N. Camden Drive. Architecture: Spanish exterior, Anglican interior. Original building dedicated on Easter Day, 1925. New building dates from 1955. Two Sunday masses are offered.

* Presbyterian Church

505 N. Rodeo Drive. Architecture: Spanish revival with British influences. Originally Beverly Hills Community Presbyterian Church. Joined with Beverly Vista Presbyterian Church 18 years ago.