Why it's there: Holly-Vermont Realty

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Thursday, August 30, 2007
Matt Hochberg

On a door on Hollywood Boulevard you will find a door to a fictitious company on a door called "Holly-Vermont Realty" and the question is....why is this here?

Holly-Vermont Realty refers to the very early days of the Disney company. Walt declared he could only pay $10 per month and the only place at that price was a room at the back of the real-estate office. The Walt Disney Company started in 1923 in the rear of a small office occupied by Holly-Vermont Realty at 4451 Kingswell Ave in Los Angeles. It was there that Walt Disney, and his brother Roy, produced a series of short live-action/animated films collectively called the Alice Comedies. Within four months, the ever-growing staff moved next door to larger facilities, where the sign on the window read "Disney Bros. Studio." A year later, in 1925, the Disneys made a deposit on a Hyperion Avenue lot in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles.

4451 & 4649 Kingswell Ave. Disney Bros. Studio site Present	Disney Bros. Studio (Walt, third from left. Roy on Right).

This sign on a door that doesn't seem to have any relevance to Disney at first glance, but it harkens back to the very early days of the Walt Disney Company and pays hommage to the meager beginnings of what would become a vast worldwide media empire.