Greystone Park

Greystone Park is in Beverly Hills, up in the genuinely hilly part where the even richer people live, but not so high up that I couldn't get there on my bike (although I have to confess to walking it a bit once I was in the park- pretty steep!)

This is the gatehouse and entrance to the park, although in true L.A. car-oriented style, you don't actually go in here. You have to huff and puff (if cycling) up a steep hill to the parking lot at the top.

Greystone Park used to be the mansion and grounds of the Doheny family, until it was purchased by the city of Beverly Hills and made into a park in 1971.  Below is the goldfish pond:

Oops, photography is one of the prohibited activities at this park!  Oh, the risks I take for my readership... scroll down for the forbidden sights of Greystone!!

Part of the formal gardens, of which there are several:

Side view of the mansion.  They use this building sometimes in movies and T.V.

I was admiring the realism of the turtle sculptures in this pond...

...when one hopped off and swam away!  Real, live turtles, probably not too impressed by a rule-flaunting Canadian with a camera:

The house of course has a spectacular view.  That's downtown in the distant left:

The mansion had lots of cool details, like these chimneys- each one had a different pattern in the brick work.

Houseplants (to these Canadian eyeballs) growing loose on the grounds:

Fountain in another part of the formal gardens:

I liked this park, but there really isn't much to do after you see the gardens and look at the outside of the house.  That combined with the climb-a-big-hill nature of the bike ride there means it probably won't be a frequent destination, but I'm glad to have gone once.