A Different View of L.A.

By Cadillac, bike, or even by foot, these tour operators provide their own unique take on Los Angeles 

ANNE Block started offering personalized tours of Los Angeles in 1994, using an elephantine 1991 silver Cadillac with sunny blue leather upholstery and horrible gas mileage.

It was just the sort of thing she thought would appeal to L.A. residents who had visiting relatives in town and didn't have the time to take them on tours. Even the name of the company reflected that target -- Take My Mother, Please.

Block is one of a handful of entrepreneurs who have branched out into the niche tourism business, hoping that visitors will realize there is more to L.A. than wide sandy beaches, glitzy Hollywood and castles-in-the-sky Disneyland.

"Niche tourism is growing as travelers become more sophisticated," said Carol Martinez, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau. "Travelers are in search of something that suits their special interest, which is why these tours are increasing. They are looking for something beyond the traditional."

These niche-tour operators seldom start out to be full-time guides. Instead, they begin with a passion that drives them to share their view of the city with others. Their businesses often start out as hobbies and frequently remain that way. Other times, the businesses take off, and evolve into full-time jobs.

Such was the case for Rochelle Mills, director of Architours. Mills and her husband, Jeffrey, ran an independent architecture studio. But in the early 1990s, when the economy was slow and architectural projects were sparse, they started conducting architecture tours in Phoenix, where they were working on a project.

Focus on design

To organize the tour, they would call the architect responsible for designing some of the outstanding buildings in the area and ask him or her to meet with the people taking the tour. After the couple had a successful run in Phoenix, they branched out in 1994 to L.A., their hometown and the location of their studio.

"It took off with such a bang, we closed the architectural firm for a while," said Mills, who graduated from Crenshaw High School and got her architectural degree from Washington University in St. Louis. "It has turned into a monster greater than we expected."

Architours, with annual revenues totaling about $100,000, now offers tours that focus on L.A.'s architecture, its public and private art, its gardens and landscaping, and its furniture and graphic design.

"I don't think there is another city in this country that can give you such a collection of architecture," Mills noted. "You can survey everything from the 1900s to the present by starting in downtown L.A. and ending up at the ocean."

Architours leads walking tours, charging $20 per person, or driving tours that cost $25 per person per hour. Or they will do eight-hour group tours for $75 to $150 per person a day, which includes lunch and entrance fees to museums and exhibits.

Giant-Cadillac owner Block, meanwhile, a former actress with a soft Southern drawl, wanted to deliver an eccentric tour of the City of Angels that visitors wouldn't forget. Six years later, she's still successfully delivering off-the-wall, one-of-a-kind spins through L.A. by using her innate curiosity (she says she borders on being a "big snoop") and her ability to treat the town as one big foreign country. Tours start at $375 a day for one to three people and go up to $525 for five.

"No two tours are alike. I actually personalize my tour for the person in my car," Block says. "I will have an outline in advance of what we are going to do. But as we are driving from one place to another, our conversations will lead me to maybe stop off in a garden that I know. There is always some little detour that will add to the mischief."

Riding in her Cadillac is like traveling on a big floating couch that carries you comfortably through the asphalt world in which we live. The day might start in downtown Los Angeles at the historic Bradbury Building and end at her house listening to Ella Fitzgerald records. Or it might begin in Chinatown and finish up at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.

On the more athletic side of the local cottage industry is L.A. Bike Tours, founded about a year ago by actors Chris Kelly and Michele Fitzgerald. To the owners, a bike tour company sounded better than waiting tables for extra income between acting gigs.

Prices range from $25 to $55 for the various tours. You can put your foot to the pedal and take the Hip Hollywood Tour (which includes Mann's Chinese Theatre, the Walk of Fame, Paramount Studios and the Farmers Market), the Beverly Hills Urban Assault Tour (which includes Grey-stone Mansion, Rodeo Drive, the Beverly Hills Hotel and Lucille Ball's former home) or the Venice Beach/Santa Monica Tour (a nine-mile ride through the Venice canals and Santa Monica Beach).

The actors' motto is, tour buses are for couch potatoes. Riders can take their own bikes or, for an extra fee, the company will supply one.

"Touring on bikes is less obtrusive and more relaxing," said Kelly, a fit 34-year-old actor who is cast mostly in science fiction shows. (He has been on two "Star Trek" episodes.) "If we ride to the Getty Center, you don't need a parking pass to get in."

Running through L.A.

Also on the athletic side is Cheryl Anker's approach. The former paralegal runs Off 'n' Running Tours, started in 1994, which leads jogging and walking tours of Beverly Hills and other West-side areas.

"Initially, I wanted to make my tours available for women from out of town who wouldn't want to run on their own," said the seasoned runner, who can do an 8.5-minute mile. "After a few months of being in business, all kinds of people started hearing about it."

For $50, Anker will put together a four- to six-mile tour that will take you past movie stars' homes or along a less star-studded track that runs up canyon roads or along the beach.

While athletic activities are in high demand, Hollywood sells very well, too. Michael Several began his On Location Tours a few years ago and finds they are popular among tourists who are enamored with movies.

Several, who has a full-time job as a grant writer for the Westside Women's Health Center, operates his business strictly as a hobby. He shows up at the downtown Public Library every Sunday at 10 a.m., where he meets guests who have paid $10 for the two-hour tour. They wind their way through tall buildings and historic hotels where scenes from movies were shot. The Biltmore Hotel, for example, has been used as a setting in "Chinatown," "Independence Day" and "True Lies."

The tour proceeds to the Grand Central Market, the Bonaventure Hotel, Wells Fargo Center on Bunker Hill, Angels Flight and ends at the downtown Central Library.

"I'm not making a lot of money," Several said. "But it's a great way to meet people."