After striking oil a half century ago, the fictional Clampett clan left their shack in the Ozarks and moved to Beverly Hills.
“The Beverly Hillbillies” ran for nine years on CBS and cemented the California city as the go-to-place for the wealthy. These days, the Clampetts might pick a different destination.
“Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” which begins its 18th season next month on the E! network, has put a spotlight on another part of the Los Angeles metro area: Calabasas.
This year, for the first time, the community of about 24,300 people has eclipsed Beverly Hills in Bloomberg’s annual ranking of the richest cities in the U.S. The average household income in Calabasas is $194,010, more than twice the national average and about $4,000 higher than Beverly Hills, which has 34,600 residents.
Located about 25 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, Calabasas owes some of its success to the usual reasons: good schools, low crime and open space. But the Kardashians’ reality TV show has had its own effect, showing that in Calabasas, the rich and famous can live normal lives without having to dodge paparazzi and tour buses every time they leave home.
“You’re not going to get tourists walking around Calabasas -- you’re going to get the celebrities that live here, going to the gym and going to the supermarket,” said Tomer Fridman, a luxury real estate agent who works with the Kardashians. “That’s why they live here -- for the privacy.”
Relatively Cheap
In recent decades, Calabasas and its even tonier neighbor to the north, Hidden Hills, have been transformed from sleepy suburbs into celebrity capitals.
The Calabasas Country Club cites the “celebrity factor” as a reason to move there. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West live in Hidden Hills, as does the rapper Drake. Actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith keep a 150-acre Calabasas compound, while Justin Bieber sold his $7.2 million Spanish-style retreat in the city to Khloe Kardashian. Actress Katie Holmes just sold a home there for about $4 million, the Los Angels Times reported this week.
Real estate in Calabasas is relatively cheap compared with Beverly Hills. That’s the premium people pay to live in the city, Fridman said. The median home price in Calabasas is $1.19 million, while it’s $2.7 million in Beverly Hills, according to Zillow. What Westchester is to Manhattan, Calabasas is to Beverly Hills, Fridman said.
“What you pay $20 million for in Hidden Hills you’re going to have to pay $50 million in Holmby Hills,” he said, referring to another neighborhood just west of Beverly Hills that’s home to the Playboy Mansion.