James McClain “It was a great big elephant of a place, the kind crazy movie people built in the crazy 20s,” William Holden as Joe Gillis narrates In the 1950 epic “Sunset Boulevard.”Gillis wasn’t talking about this particular mansion, but he may as well have been. Originally built in 1926, the rambling Spanish Revival compound sits on a high knoll right atop the best section of Sunset Boulevard in prime Beverly Hills, lording over the peasants passing by far below.