The fact that the Pacific Ocean is steadily reclaiming more and more of the bluffs which mark the western edge of Pacific Palisades does nothing to dent the social desirability of the area, which is among LA’s most affluent and well-tended neighbourhoods.

A group of influential LA-based architects Ray and Charles Eames, Eero Saarinen and Richard Neutra among them – gave Pacific Palisades several houses as part of the city’s much-vaunted Case Study Program which began in the 1940s. Unfortunately, public visibility wasn’t high on the architects’ agenda and none of the much-photographed houses can be seen adequately from the roadside.

Disappointed fans of architecture, and anyone who feels LA’s urban madness is about to overwhelm them, should spend an hour or two beside the swan-populated lakes and gardens of the Self-Realization Fellowship, 17190 Sunset Boulevard, founded by an Indian sect in 1950 to express the universality of all religions.