House at 9137 Cordell Drive

Many tours of Los Angeles and Hollywood feature drive-bys of the homes of rich and famous celebrities. Some routes through Beverly Hills pass by the house at 9137 Cordell Drive, which has connections not only to filmdom but also to politics.

In the 1930s, movie actress Jane Wyman lived just a few blocks from actor Ronald Reagan. She in an apartment on Londonderry View, a block north of Sunset, and he was at 1128 Cory Avenue. When they married in early 1940, the couple moved into her place together, but it proved to be too small when their first daughter, Maureen, was born the following January. That's when the Reagans decided to build their own house at nearby 9137 Cordell Drive.

The family's new home was finished in 1942, and they lived there until the marriage ended in divorce in 1948. The house was subsequently sold, and the man who would some day be America's 40th President moved back into an apartment on Londonderry View. Only after marrying Nancy Davis in 1952 would he buy the house most closely associated with him in Pacific Palisades.

In 1960, the structure on Cordell Drive was remodeled and expanded to its current size of 5,935 square feet, making it the largest house in the immediate area. However, with its front yard wooded, hedged, and gated, there is not much to see from the narrow road out front today. The property is currently owned by Richard V. Perry and valued at just a little over half a million dollars.