This street was born in 1905 on the Hillcrest Terrace tract north of Hollywood Blvd. (Today’s Stanley Ave. was called Large Ave. back then, while the original location of Stanley Ave. was one block west: present-day Courtney Ave.) The tract was owned by the Bank of Hollywood, which had no Stanleys amongst its officers or their families. But in 1902, the bank’s president George W. Hoover built the Hotel Hollywood at Hollywood and Highland, Margaret J. Anderson (1859-1930) leased it as proprietress – and her son Stanley Stoneman Anderson (1883-1951) would help her run it. The younger Anderson was born in Alhambra and became a big Beverly Hills landowner in later life. Back in 1905, the Hotel Hollywood was the social hub of pre-tinsel Tinseltown, and everyone knew the mother-and-son innkeepers, so it’s not implausible that Hoover would name his street after young Stanley. But that’s just a theory, Stanley being such a common name. At any rate, the hotel was so popular that in 1911 the Andersons were tapped by Beverly Hills founder Burton Green to set up another one: the legendary Beverly Hills Hotel.
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