An important star of the silent film era,
Alla (Allah) Nazimova from Yalta on the Black Sea, purchased a mansion on Sunset Boulevard in 1919, then built elegant bungaloes around it to serve as homes-away-from-home for celebrities visiting
Los Angeles. Some of the celebrities were in town to make films or were simply between homes. Some lived at the Garden for months on end. Some, like Steinbeck and Hemingway and Faulkner, were there to work on books they were writing.
But whatever the reason for the visit, 
the Garden of Allah was an escape from reality for those whose job it was to provide that escape for everyone else.

Some of the other people you were likely to find in the Garden of Allah were Dorothy Parker, Orson Welles, Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, Marlene Dietrich, Errol Flynn, Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Gloria Swanson, Clara Bow, Buster Keaton, Ava Gardner and the Marx Bros… Back in those days, a huge chunk of the American celebrity “A” list.