Sunset Avenue

I’m nearly there now with only seven minutes to go according to Google maps. I would be a whole lot more excited if it were just Steph and I living together but that couldn’t be further than the truth.

I only really know a little bit about where Steph lives from what she’s told me. She lives in a huge house which I suppose at one point was a hotel. From what I know, there’s about fifty people that live there. The fiftyish or so include the owners, workers and “the girls”. Apparently it’s sort of equivalent to the playboy mansion with half naked girls everywhere. Who are the owners may you ask? I have no idea. There are about 10 of them and I have zero idea what they do, I don’t even think Steph knows to be honest.

Although Steph can be one of those “girls” in a heartbeat, she’s not. She got a job there a while ago through an ex boyfriend of hers. While Steph was attending community college years ago, she had a job as a travel agent, she would find great deals sometimes and we’d take long weekends to various cities and countries. Well one trip, we went to Madrid, Spain. It was beautiful there, anyway, that’s where Steph met Enzo. He was a gorgeous, mysterious man and had bad news written all over him. She fell for him hard immediately, I guess a love at first sight kind of thing. Well low and behold apparently he was in Spain for business and only lived a couple of hours away from us. The house she’s living in now needed someone to take care of the travel, booking elite hotels, car rentals, all of that sort of stuff for these people, the owners of the house. After about six months of dating Enzo they broke up because he “wanted to live out of country” which I don’t really believe but I don’t care, he was bad for her. She stayed back in L.A working for these people and has been there ever since. She seems happy, I know she’s well taken care of, she doesn’t pay for rent or food so I guess it’s a pretty good gig.

I pull up onto a street Sunset Avenue, this must be it. I reach the entrance of the gate which is beautiful in itself. It must be at least 10 feet high, it’s black and has intricate designs thoughout the metal bars. I get a glimpse of the house and a view of the ocean behind the lavish gate and boy it’s not what I was expecting.

I enter in the five digit passcode that Steph texted me earlier and the gates begin to open. I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting but it definitely wasn’t this. The house comes more into view as I slowly drive further down the driveway. There’s a grand circular water fountain like the ones you see in a movie when they show a super rich person’s mansion. Behind the fountain is an even grander staircase leading to what I assume is the front entrance. I park my car where Steph instructed me to and climb out of the car. I grab only my backpack for now which contains only the essentials and throw it over my shoulder.

I can see how this was a hotel at one point, it has four stories which sort of it gives it away. It has an old feel to it but in a very elegant way. Each window on the second and third floor has a balcony which looks to match the color and style of the entrance gate. The fourth floor though, has two balconies that are much longer and larger than the rest of the balconies. My guess is that it wasn’t that way when the hotel was originally built and that someone designed it that way later.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and let Steph know that I’m here. I start my way over to the front entrance admiring the details of the lavish cream colored house. Someone spent a lot of time making this place perfect when it was built. But who?