Antique & Vintage Postcards

Lanterns, arched bridges, ornamental ponds, and tiered pagoda rooflines fill every inch of this sweeping real-photo panorama of the Japanese gardens at the Bernheimer estate in Hollywood — a lush, otherworldly oasis carved into the Hollywood Hills by Charles Bernheimer in the early 1910s and populated with authentic antiques, bronze sculptures, and thousands of carefully placed plantings that made it one of the most elaborate private Japanese gardens in the American West. The handwritten caption "Japanese gardens / Bernheimer House" appears in the lower right of the image, identifying this view as the garden level below the main palace structure seen in the companion card. Shot from a slightly elevated vantage, the photograph reveals the full complexity of the layout — multiple pavilions, a zigzag bridge, a moongate, and a boathouse-style structure at water's edge — all wrapped in mature subtropical plantings with the Santa Monica Mountains hovering in the haze beyond. Like its companion, this is an AZO-back RPPC printed on Kodak AZO paper, unused, with clean bright surfaces. Together, the two Bernheimer cards form a matched pair of exceptional collector interest.