Greystone Mansion (1928): The Doheny Estate Above Beverly Hills

Greystone Mansion is one of the most imposing and mythic estates ever built in Los Angeles. Completed in 1928 for Edward “Ned” Doheny Jr., heir to one of the early oil fortunes that helped shape Southern California, the house sits above Beverly Hills like an English manor dropped on a Californian ridge. Built of pale limestone, crowned with steep slate roofs, and set within terraced formal gardens, Greystone is both architectural theater and a revealing artifact of how wealth, power, and tragedy played out in early Los Angeles.

Origins: oil money, new cities, and a wedding gift

Greystone begins with the rise of the Doheny family. Edward L. Doheny made his fortune from oil discoveries in Los Angeles and Mexico in the early twentieth century, becoming one of the region’s most powerful and controversial figures, he was a central figure in the Teapot Dome Scandal. By the mid 1920s he was ready to create a monumental estate for his only son, Edward “Ned” Doheny Jr., and Ned’s wife Lucy. The result would be one of the largest private homes in California at the time.

Construction began in the late 1920s with architect Gordon B. Kaufmann, known for his massive civic and commercial projects in the region. The budget was staggering, with the total cost of the house, land, and improvements estimated at more than four million dollars in late 1920s money. Limestone, slate, hand-carved wood, imported stone, and custom fixtures were brought together to signal permanence and pedigree in a city still proving its own identity.

Architecture: an English manor above Beverly Hills

Greystone is a study in controlled drama. The main house is organized around courtyards, terraces, and long corridors that frame views of the city below. The exterior combines Tudor Revival and Jacobean details: steep gables, tall clustered chimneys, stone tracery, and leaded glass windows. Despite its size, the house is carefully scaled as a series of volumes, so that you experience it as a sequence rather than a single block. The distinctive pale limestone exterior gives the house its name (“Greystone”).

Inside, the materials do the talking. There are vast spaces like the two-story foyer and grand stair, wood-paneled halls, intricate stone fireplaces, polished stone floors, and coffered ceilings. Notable rooms include a grand drawing room, a billiard room, a library, and a spectacular indoor bowling alley. Long corridors and hidden service routes reflect an era when estates were run by a large household staff working mostly out of sight.

Outside, landscape architect Paul J. Thiene used terraces, formal lawns, stairways, fountains, and cypress-lined walks to stitch the steep site together. The property includes a large motor court, a swimming pool, and a staff recreational area, ensuring every level creates a new vantage point.

The Doheny tragedy inside the house

What makes Greystone more than an impressive house is the drama that unfolded inside its walls almost as soon as it was finished. In February 1929, only a few months after the family moved in, Ned Doheny and his longtime friend and employee Hugh Plunkett were found dead in a bedroom, in what was officially ruled a murder-suicide. This occurred while Ned’s father, Edward L. Doheny Sr., was embroiled in the Teapot Dome Scandal, the largest federal corruption case of the time, adding immense psychological pressure and instant notoriety to the family name.

The tragedy instantly reshaped the way people saw the house. Greystone became a symbol of both extreme privilege and extreme pressure. Lucy Doheny, Ned’s wife, remained in the house for several years, raising her children there before eventually selling the property. The story of Ned and Hugh never fully left the public imagination, and it continues to color the way people talk about the estate.

From private estate to city landmark

After the Doheny family sold the property, Greystone went through a long transition. Portions of the land were subdivided, but the main house and core gardens were eventually purchased by the City of Beverly Hills in the 1960s. Instead of letting the estate be demolished or redeveloped, the fate of many similar estates, the city preserved it as a public park and cultural venue.

That decision saved Greystone, and today it functions as a highly sought-after event and filming location, with its revenue helping fund its upkeep. The house and gardens are regularly open to the public, allowing visitors to walk the same halls that once represented the height of L.A.’s oil wealth.

Greystone on screen: how Hollywood adopted the house

Greystone is so visually strong that it almost always reads as a character rather than a backdrop. Directors use it when they need a setting that signals old money, East Coast or European heritage, or a faintly haunted sense of privilege. The house and grounds have appeared in dozens of movies and series, including:

• The Big Lebowski: The house’s interiors and dramatic staircase were used for scenes in the Big Lebowski’s mansion.
• There Will Be Blood: Its atmosphere and subject closely mirror the Doheny oil story and the era of early L.A. moguls.
• The Social Network: A stand-in for East Coast-linked wealth and institutional power.
• X Men and other genre films that need a school, academy, or lair that feels historic and powerful.
• The Witches of Eastwick, Ghostbusters, Gilmore Girls, The Prestige, and many more that rely on its halls, terraces, and fountains to establish mood instantly.

The house works on camera because its proportions, materials, and details read clearly in every shot. Greystone has effectively become a shared cinematic shorthand for old power and complicated history.

Context: what was happening in Los Angeles

• 1920s: Oil and real estate money pour into Los Angeles, and Beverly Hills shifts from a small town to a luxury residential enclave. Greystone stands as a symbol of that moment when fortunes tried to anchor themselves in stone. Other visionary hillside homes from early Hollywood include Moorcrest.
• 1930s and 1940s: The city weathers the Great Depression and war years. The house remains a private world above the city while the Doheny name stays linked to scandal and power.
• 1950s and 1960s: Freeways and postwar development reshape Los Angeles. Large estates become financially difficult to maintain. The city’s decision to purchase Greystone makes its preservation unusually important.
• 1970s to today: Greystone shifts from private privilege to public memory. It becomes a filming location, a wedding and event venue, and a teaching tool for understanding the history of architecture, energy, and wealth in Southern California.

Why Greystone Mansion matters

• Architectural significance: One of the clearest and grandest examples of Tudor Revival architecture in Los Angeles, executed at a rare residential scale.
• Historical resonance: The Doheny family story ties the house directly to the early history of oil in California, the Teapot Dome Scandal, and the human cost of extreme wealth.
• Cinematic influence: Its constant presence in film and television has turned Greystone into an almost subconscious landmark for audiences worldwide.
• Preservation success: The survival of the estate as a public resource shows how a city that often demolishes its past can also choose to protect it.

What it feels like to be there today

Walk the long drive up from Loma Vista and the house reveals itself slowly. The limestone catches the light differently throughout the day: soft in the morning, sharp in late afternoon, silvery under marine layer clouds. Inside, the halls are quiet, and the sound of your own footsteps becomes part of the experience. Look out from the terraces and the grid of Beverly Hills spreads out below, almost abstract. The house feels both anchored in its time and slightly outside of it, like a film set that was never struck after the final scene wrapped.

All home images here are artistic illustrations used for education and historical commentary.