Behind the 90210 Bunker

1970s Beverly Hills Was Rich, Odd, Insular-and a Great Place To Be a Kid

When my family moved to the San Fernando Valley from the East Coast, in 1965, my mother told the realtor she wanted an older home. The oldest they could find was a 1950s ranch-style house in Studio City. It had a backyard with a pool and bottlebrush and pomegranate trees. You could often find a giant bottle of Inglenook Chablis on the patio table.

By 1976, when I was eight years old, my parents realized it was cheaper to buy a house in a better school district than to keep sending …