Secret Stairs #37: Hollywood Bowl and High Tower Loop, 2.6 miles, 525 steps.

Hollywood Heights, a treasure of a neighborhood tucked on the mountainside southwest of the Hollywood Bowl. The story of HH is impressive, with historic homes and famous residents dating from the 1920s to the present. Old 20s-50s hillside homes on "walk streets" and "stair streets" only accessible by foot, and one of the rare L.A. intersections of two walk-streets, begging the question—where do the residents park? We even found a "Secret Stairs" station with a bench and poster map of our hike. Nearing the top of the hillside is High Tower, a five-story elevator built in 1920 for residents as an option to climbing stairs home. According to author Charles Fleming, "This architectural oddity has appeared in many iconic Los Angeles novels, as characters like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe and Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch have trod past it looking for suspects...Only 30 residents, it is said, have keys to this exclusive conveyance." High Tower also had a role in The Long Goodbye. A serene area so lush with foliage you'd never guess the crazed bustle of Hollywood Boulevard was only walking distance away.