This quirky UFO-shaped curiosity is often mistaken for the airport’s control tower.

The last orange grove of the San Fernando Valley is owned and protected by CSU Northridge.

Hollywood's oldest hotel is the site of the first Academy Awards, the birthplace of Marilyn Monroe's career, and the home of Montgomery Clift's ghost.

Come crisp December nights, this fairly plain neighborhood becomes a holiday dream world.

This symbol of peace is appropriately positioned overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

This “living museum” at UCLA exhibits thousands of plant species from all over the world.

Every weekend, the parking lot of this Buddhist temple turns into a Thai street-food paradise.

The quiet canyon has a tumultuous history involving a doomsday cult.

The L.A. Zoo has a secret garden of rare bootleg cycads, a palm specimen dating back 280 million years.

This brightly made over hotel hides decades of suicide, serial killers, and mysterious deaths.

Historic funicular railway, believed to be the shortest railroad in the world.

Scores of vintage street lamps shine along L.A.’s Miracle Mile.

These delicate buggers are some of the rarest fossils that have bubbled up from the Tar Pits.

World-famous, Pink's still manages to keep its prized cult fetish status.

Hollywood's most famous landmark, the "temporary" sign that has stood for decades longer than intended.

America's most famous piece of self-built architecture.

High on a hill overlooking Los Angeles lives a world famous, high-power conical Tesla Coil.

The legendary building that needed ghostly approval before being built.

This iconic L.A. bookshop is housed in an abandoned bank—both symbolic and chic.

Quite simply the largest tree in the world (by volume).

Four hundred granite steps were built into this massive rock by the National Park Service.

A water tower shaped like a giant coffee pot looms over a small Swedish village in Central California.

An underground mansion with fruit-bearing trees and grapes growing beneath the surface of central California.

The same family lived in this Victorian house for nearly 100 years without altering the building.