Outposts of this restaurant chain were shaped like jaunty chapeaus.

Where a great scandal unfolded with a famous female revivalist at its center.

The largest collection of two headed animals in the world.

Apartment building was once posh playground to the Hollywood elite.

Drink a Guinness under the wings of Reagan's retired Air Force One in his presidential library.

World War II-era Nazi compound nestled in the Santa Monica hills.

Rainbow-hued local gem in Venice.

Perched high atop telephone poles is an uncanny outdoor art gallery that greets passersby on their commute.

Two men, two visionaries of Venice Beach, one little hotel that smells like cookies.

A lonely Gondola stuck on a traffic circle sits in a spot where it once would have floated down the Grand Canal.

From pre-war whiskey cocktails to prohibition-era speakeasy secrecy, this bar has seen it all.

The words of the neighborhood's most famous poets adorn four concrete walls.

In a city filled with Frank Gehry buildings, one stands out as one of the architect's weirder works.

Santa Monica's oldest restaurant, decorated with set pieces from the Mutiny on the Bounty.

Giant origami crease patterns engraved in Santa Monica intersections may even be visible from space.

One of the first skyscrapers in Santa Monica, and a famous getaway for the Hollywood elite of then and now.

A shockingly detailed small scale recreation of the temples of Abu Simbel.

The 10-foot-wide Long Beach home was built on a dare.

A historic fort commemorating the United States' naval history.

Remants of foundations, streets, and streetcar tracks inhabit the cliffs where a landslide occurred in 1929.

A herd of 150 bison live on California's Santa Catalina Island and are at the heart of an ongoing debate between environmental protection and economic expansion.

Chewing gum tycoon's memorial lies perched over wife's botanical gardens on Santa Catalina Island.

An unexpected connection to Chicago awaits visitors on an island just off the California coast.

In the middle of an extremely unforgiving and desolate high desert is the most secret military facility in the world.