L.A.’s optimistic home developers spent the last few years constructing over-the-top glass compounds with candy rooms, helipads and bowling alleys on spec—assuming ultrarich buyers would bite. But a recent spate of $100-million-plus deals shows that buyers at the very top of L.A.’s market are looking for something different: history.

Amazon.com Inc. chief executive Jeff Bezos paid $165 million, a record for the area, to purchase a 9.4-acre quintessential old Hollywood estate—a Georgian-style compound built by Jack Warner,...