Sunset Plaza Homes for Sale

About the Neighborhood

Above the Strip, Behind the Plaza

Sunset Plaza traces to 1892, when Nellie and Victor Ponet bought roughly two hundred acres of ranch land from nurseryman Edmund D. Sturtevant and settled in for retirement. Their daughter Gertrude and her husband, Francis S. Montgomery, inherited the property and opened its first commercial buildings along Sunset Boulevard in 1924, when the future Strip was still lightly built county territory. In 1932 Holly Vista Drive was renamed Sunset Plaza Drive, fixing the name of both the retail block and the hillside that climbs behind it. Few Los Angeles addresses carry a single family's imprint this legibly across more than a century.

The retail block that defines the address went up between 1934 and 1936, designed by the firm Honnold & Russell with architect Charles R. Selkirk in a genteel Georgian and Regency mode — low storefronts, landscaped medians, sidewalk terraces. Coverage of the property has long reported that the Montgomery family still owns and manages it through Montgomery Management Co., an ownership run of more than a hundred and thirty years, though buyers should verify current ownership rather than assume it. Either way, the block's low scale anchors the neighborhood's identity and keeps the streetscape recognizable in photographs going back generations.

Above the shops, Sunset Plaza Drive switchbacks up the ridge toward Mulholland-adjacent ground, feeding Rising Glen Road, Hedges Way, Miller Drive, and Londonderry Place. The housing stock stacks eras: Mediterranean houses from the first hillside subdivisions of the 1920s and 1930s, postwar and mid-century view houses — some architect-designed — and contemporary rebuilds that push glass out over the basin. Lots are irregular, driveways are steep, and two houses a few doors apart can have entirely different view planes, so walking a property at different times of day tells you more than photographs will.

The jurisdiction line is the neighborhood's quiet complication. The retail strip along Sunset sits inside the City of West Hollywood, incorporated in 1984, while nearly all of the hillside homes above are City of Los Angeles, in the Hollywood Hills West planning area under ZIP 90069. Permits, short-term-rental rules, parking enforcement, and even trash service change at the line, and a handful of parcels near the boundary generate genuine confusion — listing databases mislabel them regularly. Before writing an offer, confirm the governing city on title, because renovation timelines and hillside review differ meaningfully between the two.

Daily practicalities reward attention. The Los Angeles side of the hill falls under the Baseline Hillside Ordinance, with slope-based size limits and grading review, and construction staging on the narrow streets requires haul-route approval. Current attendance maps show West Hollywood Elementary, Bancroft Middle School, and Fairfax Senior High serving hillside addresses, with some parcels shown for Hollywood High — run the exact address through LAUSD's Resident School Identifier rather than trusting portals. Traffic on the Strip below concentrates on weekend evenings, so test the left turn onto Sunset from Sunset Plaza Drive at the hours you would actually make it.