In the golden age of Hollywood, the studios would pride themselves on how large their studio backlot was. It was actually considered a selling point for a studio to brag about its backlot; how many acres it was and how many soundstages it had. No studio was prouder of its storied backlot than MGM.
And it had a good reason to be. At its peak, it was the largest, most extravagant backlot anywhere. Other studios could only dream of its amenities- there were small town sets, big city sets, even an entire lake and part of a river.
While Universal Studios had a larger sized lot, it was mostly undeveloped at the time due to the studio's shaky finances. MGM's lot, however, was fully realized. The other titans of film could only dream of having MGM's resources and they often jockeyed to borrow or rent MGM's facilities when needed. They did this grudgingly, however, because studio head Louis B. Mayer would often lord it over them.
Sadly, this wonderland of film would not survive the 1960's. The company, weakened by the onslaught of television and the public's shifting taste in films, was sold to Kirk Kirkorian, whose only desire was to use MGM's name for his huge new casinos and everything that wasn't nailed down to help finance them. Warehouses full of priceless props used in the glory days of MGM were raided for a series of auctions. Hollywood history vanished into the private collections of the wealthy who bought ruby slippers, famous costumes and more. Culver City, which had been home to MGM's grand studio lot, was going through a building boom so Mr. Kirkorian took advantage to sell off the storied lot piece by piece to developers who replaced Hollywood history with condominiums. The lot, a fraction of its size during its heyday was eventually sold to Columbia Pictures and is now owned by Sony.
