Greystone Mansion

Greystone Mansion was built as part of the Doheny Greystone Estate for Edward "Ned" Lawrence Doheny Jr. on land given to him in 1925 by his father, oil producer Edward Lawrence Doheny, who with Charles A. Canfield first struck oil in Los Angeles in 1892 and later became one of the world's largest oil producers through discoveries in Mexico and California. Designed by Gordon B. Kaufman, with landscape architecture by Paul G. Thiene and construction by the P.J. Walker Company, the mansion stood on what had originally been a 415-acre parcel, the largest family estate in Beverly Hills history. Construction began on February 15, 1927, and Ned, his wife Lucy Smith Doheny, and their five children moved into the mansion in September 1928. The estate originally included a lake, babbling brooks, cascading waterfalls, a kennel, tennis courts, a fire station, a swimming pool, and a greenhouse, while the mansion itself contained 55 livable rooms within 46,000 square feet and was built of steel reinforced concrete faced with Indiana limestone and roofed with Welsh slate. After Ned's early death in 1929, Lucy and her second husband, Leigh Battson, lived there until 1954, after which most of the property was sold to the Paul Trousdale Corporation and the mansion with 18.3 acres passed in 1955 to Henry Crown's Park-Grey Corporation of Chicago. Vacant until 1965, the estate was then purchased by the City of Beverly Hills, which built a 19-million-gallon reservoir on the property and formally dedicated the mansion and grounds as a public park in 1971. In 1976, Greystone Estate was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and since the late 1950s it has also served as a major filming location for hundreds of productions.

Beverly Hills, California · United States