1950 Martha Lake Souvenir Map and Guide to Starland Estates

This is the Spring 1950 issue of the famous 'Souvenir Map and Guide to Starland Estates and Mansions,' the oldest continuously published map of its kind. It lists the addresses of leading celebrities of the day, providing tourists an easy guide to track down their favorite stars, or at least check out their mansions from the outside.

The Map

The two-color printed map focuses on Beverly Hills and the immediate surroundings, including parts of Bel-Air, Westwood, and West Los Angeles. The University of California (Los Angeles), the Los Angeles Country Club, Sunset Boulevard, and Santa Monica Boulevard are clearly visible. Over three hundred celebrity addresses are listed, with one hundred and fifty keyed to the map using the surrounding grid coordinates.

The map, regularly updated, was sold as early as 1933 by Wesley G. Lake from a Los Angeles street corner. The business would later pass to his wife Martha, their daughter Vivienne, and their granddaughter Linda. The addresses in the legend were updated at least once a year, as were the coordinates of the numbered items on the address list. Efforts by city officials to curtail sales of such maps to fight tourist traffic in Beverly Hills and protect camera-shy celebrities were scotched by a 1976 Supreme Court decision.

The Stars

The celebrities are ranked alphabetically in two lists: those keyed to the map, (from 'Aherne, Brian' to 'Young, Roland') and those whose addresses were listed but not marked on the map (from 'Abbott, Bud' to 'Wynn, Keenan'). Other stars include Fred Astaire, Jack Benny, Hoagy Carmichael, Charlie Chaplin, Bing Crosby, Betty Grable, Katherine Hepburn, Boris Karloff, Heddy LaMarr, Harold Lloyd, the Marx Brothers, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Stanwyck, and Elizabeth Taylor.

Publication History and Census

This map was published by Martha Lake in 1950, based on a 1936 original by Wesley Lake that was updated regularly. Given the extreme longevity of this map's publication, while few of any given edition survive, the map is relatively ubiquitous on the whole. OCLC only lists eight examples, however, and none of this edition.