The Los Angeles County Board created the Beverly Hills school district in 1913. A small, portable school building was moved to the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Coldwater Canyon Drive, and Canyon School was opened with financial support from the Rodeo Land and Water Company until the company could be reimbursed from taxes to be levied.
In 1914, Hawthorne School was opened in a small building on a 5-acre tract of land at Rexford Drive and Eldorado Avenue with only 35 pupils. Canyon School was then closed.
But the real beginning of the present school system was in 1923. Large additions were made to Hawthorne School and Beverly Vista School was built. The latter was completed in 1925 on South Elm Drive.
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Soon Beverly Vista became overcrowded and in 1927, that facility was expanded while the construction of a new and much larger school building began—El Rodeo de Las Aguas School, located on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Benedict Canyon Drive (now Whittier Drive).
High school students of Beverly Hills attended other schools within traveling distance. Inconvenience coupled with a growing number of high school-aged residents led to construction starting on Beverly Hills High School in 1927.
When Beverly Hills High school first opened its doors a year and a half ago [in 1928] less than 300 students enrolled. Today there are nearly a thousand students in attendance. These figures alone indicate the remarkable growth of the high school.
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To take care of the large overflow of students, a beautiful new addition which will cost approximately $125,000 will be built. The addition will accommodate between 400 and 500 students and it will be constructed to conform with the present type of French architecture of the main building.
To make it still more beautiful the plans call for an enclosed patio arrangement behind the auditorium. Until the addition is built, the 250 extra students are being accommodated by running the lunch hour in two shifts, thus adding an extra period to the day.
—"Beverly High's Rapid Expansion," by George Elmendorf Jr., Beverly Hills Citizen, 1929.
The BHHS campus covered 19.5 acres between Moreno Drive, Heath Avenue, Country Club Drive (now Olympic Boulevard) and Spalding Drive. It was built to accommodate about 2,000 students.
Thank you for reading this history, Russ
