The year was 1915. Metro had sent a troupe of filmmakers to Hollywood to establish a West Coast studio. Along with the legendary light of Los Angeles, these pioneers found a small studio in the heart of Hollywood, surrounded by bungalows and orange groves. Over the years at this site, the company expanded with success eventually moving most of its film production to Hollywood.

The story of the Cahuenga Lot reads like the script of a Hollywood epic. Ramon Navarro, in 1923, swashbuckled through the palace of Louis XVI and a country French village in the silent “Scaramouche”, and in 1924, young Jackie Coogan floated on the South Sea lagoon created for “Little Robinson Crusoe”. A few years later, in 1931, another young Jackie (Cooper) along with the great Wallace Beery, broke our hearts in “The Champ”. Marlon Brando marched around Stage #9 in “The Men” and Gary Cooper walked alone at “High Noon” in 1952.

We’ve had diva’s, from Grace Kelley to Gwen Stefani and Barbara Streisand to Brittany Spears. The padded walls have rocked with Motown and Mozart, the Rat Pack and Linkin Park, Yanni and Jane’s Addiction.  We’ve had good guys and bad guys too.  Robin Williams, Michael Jackson, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Bob Dylan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Roger Rabbit have all felt right at home here in the shadow of the Hollywood Sign.

For anyone who has stayed up past their bedtime to watch TV Land Television, you have been amused and delighted by the many “Golden Age of Television” shows that broke the rules and paved the way for the “Friends” and “Bachelors” of today. As Desilu Cahuenga Studios from 1953 through 1967 when Paramount Studios acquired all Desilu holdings, the studio buzzed with the birth of a new and exciting art form. “I Love Lucy”, “Our Miss Brooks”, “Danny Thomas Show”, “The Jack Benny Show”, “The Real McCoys”, “I Spy”, “Hogan’s Heroes”, “That Girl”, “Make Room for Daddy”, “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and many other classic television shows were created here. 

In recent years, the studio, owned and operated independently since 1974, has been home to television, film, music video and special event producers of a new generation. From “The Golden Age of Television” to “The Golden Girls”, from MTV to the WB, from “Ally McBeal” to “Lizzie McGuire”, Ren-Mar Studios continues to provide a Home in the Heart of Hollywood for today’s future classics.