Hollywood at Its Heights, Just $11.5M

With jetliner views of the Los Angeles basin -- from the ocean to downtown -- this $11.5-million contemporary home is the kind of Hollywood Hills showplace that might you imagine every hot, young movie or music star lives in. (Check out Kayne West's $3.9 million pop-art filled, architectural home on a nearby slope). Winding your way up the extremely curvy Sunset Plaza Drive might seem totally impractical until you see in the drop-dead view from this glass-and-steel house.

Real estate agent Blair Chang, of Rose + Chang, explains that, "Even in this market, a buyer will pay a premium price for a house that's rare and super-hard to duplicate."

Set on its own promontory, with a jutting deck that feels like an eagle's nest, 1900 Sunset Plaza Drive provides a feeling of endless space combined with privacy -- strong selling points for a certain sector of L.A.'s entertainment industry. Though built in 2004, it has an adjacent two-bedroom, two-bath 1920s bungalow that can be part of the sale, creating a "serious private compound," says Chang

Home sale prices continue to soar in this once-modest postwar neighborhood. Why do buyers pay up to $1,750 per square foot for a home on this hill?