It’s hidden behind a fortress of foliage, so it’s hard to say what exactly it looks like. The other houses in this verdant patch of Brentwood, about a mile north of Sunset, vary in architectural styles from terra-cotta-topped Mediterranean casas to multimillion-dollar midcentury clapboards. But try to zero in on this gated, 35,000-square-foot, four-bedroom home by using Google Maps Street View, and all you’ll see is a blurry splotch. The property has been digitally obscured, by request, for privacy.

This is where Kamala Harris lives, at least when she isn’t camped out at the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., about a 10-minute drive to the White House, potentially Harris’ next domicile.

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It isn’t discussed much — it’s not something people immediately think of when they think of Harris, not as well-known a piece of her public persona as her childhood in Oakland or her early years as a Bay Area prosecutor — but that house in Brentwood makes it true just the same: The possible next president of the United States is an Angeleno.

Over the past 24 hours, that suddenly fascinating fact has left this town giddier than it’s been since Barbenheimer. Literally overnight, big-dollar Hollywood Democratic donors who’d been nervously sitting on their checkbooks since Joe Biden’s June 27 debate debacle have been lining up to shower millions on the hometown girl who rather unexpectedly now finds herself poised to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.  

“The thing is,” gushes a top Democratic consultant and fundraiser with deep ties in Hollywood, “we haven’t had a president from Los Angeles since Ronald Reagan. A President Harris would change the power structure in ways we could not have imagined. The political center of the Democratic Party would be firmly based in L.A., just as it was with the Republicans under Reagan. California has been growing in power and influence over the past decade, and Kamala’s run could cement that shift. People will look to this city to gain access and attention, and there’s nothing Hollywood loves more than being the center of attention.”

Harris doesn’t broadcast her ties to Hollywood — no shrewd politician would — but they do indeed run deeper than her neighbors, who include Gwyneth Paltrow, Gisele Bündchen, Dr. Dre and LeBron James. For starters, her husband, law professor Doug Emhoff — possibly America’s future First Gentleman — used to be an entertainment attorney at Belin Rawlings & Badal, where he represented clients like Hollywood Video and the ad agency TBWA (the brain trust behind Taco Bell’s chihuahua mascot in the 1990s). In fact, he’s the one who purchased the Brentwood property in 2012, a year before he and Harris met, for a reported $2.7 million (it’s now estimated to be worth north of $5 million).

Digging deeper, the person who introduced Harris to Emhoff was Chrisette Hudlin, one of Harris’ closest friends, who happens to be married to Reginald Hudlin, a director and producer whose credits range from the original House Party movie to Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained to shows like the recent NAACP Image Awards. After Harris was elected to the Senate in 2016, she and Emhoff started splitting their time between Brentwood and an apartment they also owned in D.C. (they reportedly own property in San Francisco, as well), but over the years, the Hollywood connections sprung more and more roots.

By the time Harris announced as a candidate in the 2020 presidential race, she had enough contacts in L.A. to draw A-list crowds at fundraisers like the one J.J. Abrams threw for her at Bad Robot. Ben Affleck, Reese Witherspoon, Jeff Shell, Donna Langley, Jessica Alba, Mindy Kaling, Ron Meyer, Jeff Bridges and Shonda Rhimes were all early supporters. Even Leonardo DiCaprio was spotted at one event, and Steven Spielberg was said to have cut a sizable check to her campaign, before she folded it and became Biden’s 2020 running mate.

“She was high energy, extraordinarily personable and really approachable,” says Jenny Frankfurt, a former literary agent who now runs a script competition called The Finish Line and who hosted several of Harris’ 2020 primary fundraisers. “I know a lot of people knock her about the laughing, but she’s joyful and she’s smart. She has a great backstory — about being a person of color and all that she’s achieved — and she tells it well. She did give the same spiel over and over again, until about halfway through her campaign she mixed it up a little, which was appreciated.”

As reluctant as Harris has been to advertise her Hollywood network, it could obviously come in handy as she gears up for the likely face off against Donald Trump. “The idea of electing Kamala as the next president will get Hollywood really excited,” says another top Hollywood exec, who notes that donors are all but falling over themselves to contribute to her campaign. “The demoralization here after the debate was intense — everyone was convinced this was over. But I think you’ll see the pendulum swing back quickly now. Kamala’s performance in the past few weeks has been incredibly impressive. She has risen to the occasion. Everyone is ready to get back into the fight.”

Agrees Frankfurt, “Everybody I’ve encountered today has been crazy enthusiastic. Some are crazy enthusiastic because it’s her, and some are crazy enthusiastic because they want that fresh start that Biden wasn’t giving them.”

To be honest, a few might be crazy enthusiastic just to stick it to Silicon Valley, which has thrown a lot of support to Trump, with moguls like Elon Musk, Ben Horowitz and Peter Thiel endorsing the MAGA ticket. “Look, it’s no secret that Hollywood has never been very fond of these guys,” says a well-known Democratic consultant. “Nobody relishes the thought of these people in bed with the Trump administration. There’s a shitload of money here in Hollywood, as well as a lot of disdain for these tech bros, and I think you’ll see people putting up a lot of dough just to teach these dudes they can’t buy an election.”

One Hollywood exec puts it more succinctly. “Fuck these Trump-loving techies,” he says.

Of course, it’s possible not every Democrat in Hollywood is fired up and ready to go. For instance, it’s hard to know how Jeffrey Katzenberg is taking the Kamala news. The former DreamWorks co-founder and — up until yesterday — co-chair of the Biden campaign is no doubt still licking some wounds. For months, he’d been assuring everyone who’d listen (and write a check) that Biden was in tip-top mental shape. After Biden’s catastrophic debate performance, Katzenberg suddenly found himself mired in an even bigger mess than Quibi.

“People are pissed,” says yet another Hollywood executive. “Because Jeffrey asked for big, big checks and when people asked about the president’s health, he said, ‘No, no, no, he’s fine.’ That was just a lie. It was a total lie.” (Even Barry Diller, who’d been staunchly defending Katzenberg against the backlash, seems to have jumped on the Kamala train: “I unadulterated’ly support Kamala Harris,” he tells THR, adding that she’ll beat Trump’s “broken down ass.”)

Still, the Katzenberg katzenjammering aside, the town appears to be all in. On Monday morning, as donations to the Harris campaign set a one-day presidential record, Stephanie Daily Smith, a top Kamala aide, hosted a conference call with around 300 top Democratic donors, most of them in L.A. Among those on the line: Reginald Hudlin, Universal’s Donna Langley, Damon Lindelof, producer-manager Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, producers Eric Paquette and Jamie Patricof and filmmaker Yasmine Delawari Johnson, who is married to entertainment lawyer Matt Johnson, one of Harris’ close Hollywood confidents.

“It was really to organize all the bundlers and make sure everyone is going in the same direction,” a source tells THR.

Throughout the rest of the day, inside the city’s most indigo blue neighborhoods — especially the thickly wooded one above Sunset, where Gwyneth and Dr. Dre live — you could all but feel the wild excitement in the air.

Brentwood might get its first president.

Additional reporting by Degen Pener, Scott Feinberg and Lachlan Cartwright.