Charlton Heston's Beverly Hills Hilltop, With the Canyon Left as Nature Made It

Architectural Digest has put together ten photographs of Charlton Heston at home across the decades. The set runs from a small apartment in New York City to a sprawling property in California. The star of *Ben-Hur* placed the California house in Beverly Hills. He described it as ringed by roughly two hundred acres of canyon that had been left largely in its natural state. In his own telling, the wild land around the house mattered as much as the house itself. That says something to anyone who knows Beverly Hills. The name usually brings to mind manicured hedges, gated drives and lots measured in feet. A home with untouched canyon on every side is a different kind of Beverly Hills address, and Heston described it as close to undisturbed. The photographs track one actor's idea of home as it grew, from a compact New York start to open California hillside. The California chapter is the one his own words speak to most clearly. It is a house set among acres of land that nobody tried to improve.

With reporting from Architectural Digest.