On the first Sunday of most months this year, the gate at 905 Loma Vista Drive opens to anyone willing to show up and walk the first floor of the mansion for free. That is the standing arrangement at Greystone Mansion & Gardens: The Doheny Estate, the city-owned park above Sunset built as a Tudor Revival estate during Beverly Hills' original building boom. Residents who have made a habit of that self-guided walk-through will not get the option this November. The one weekend the city sets aside each month for free entry falls squarely inside a ticketed floral exhibition this time, and the rest of the fall calendar explains why that happened.
Greystone has belonged to the city since 1965 and has carried a spot on the National Register of Historic Places since 1976. It is 55 rooms and 46,000 square feet, designed by architect Gordon B. Kaufmann and built for Edward "Ned" Doheny Jr. in the late 1920s. Public ownership is what makes the free version of the mansion possible at all. It is also why the calendar can get crowded: a city park that also functions as a rentable event estate ends up running two schedules at once, and this fall both are full.
The One Free Day a Month
The baseline program is called Inside the Mansion. The first floor of the house and its restored theatre are open for a self-guided walk-through on the first Saturday or Sunday of the month, January through November. No ticket, no reservation beyond showing up during the window. It is a straightforward way to stand in rooms that have appeared in decades of film and television work.
That program does not run in December at all. The free walk-through stops in November and does not pick back up until the following January, exhibition or no exhibition. Anyone timing a visit around the calendar year needs to know that gap exists independent of anything else on the schedule.
Five Bookings in Nine Weeks
Between mid-September and late November, five separate items land on Greystone's calendar. Some are free and open to the public. Some require a ticket. One isn't open to the public at all.
| Date | Event | Access |
|---|---|---|
| Sept. 19 | The city's annual celebration of nature, with an open call for poetry submissions | Free, public |
| Sept. 23 | An Evening With the Mayor: the Beverly Hills State of the City address, hosted by the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce | Chamber event, not general admission |
| Fall (undated) | Gatsby Redux, a site-specific performance by Mixed eMotion Theatrix inspired by The Great Gatsby | Ticketed |
| Oct. 28 to Nov. 4 | Fleur de Villes: HBO's The Gilded Age, a fresh floral mannequin exhibition built around the HBO series | Ticketed |
| Nov. 22 | The Best Kept Secret Tour, a self-guided walk-through of the 55-room house run by Friends of Greystone | Ticketed, $20 |
Five bookings in a nine-week stretch is a heavier load than the mansion carries most of the year, when the free first-weekend program is the only thing on the books.
Where November's Free Weekend Actually Went
The first weekend of November 2026 falls on Saturday, Oct. 31, and Sunday, Nov. 1. The Fleur de Villes floral exhibition runs from Oct. 28 through Nov. 4. Every calendar day that would normally host the free self-guided tour in November sits inside the exhibition's run.
That overlap doesn't touch September or October. September's free weekend lands on Sept. 5 or 6, well ahead of both the nature celebration on the 19th and the State of the City address on the 23rd. October's free weekend lands on Oct. 3 or 4, three and a half weeks before Fleur de Villes opens. November is the single month this fall where the monthly walk-through weekend and the ticketed exhibition share the same dates, so the mansion's first-floor access that weekend runs through the exhibition.
The Split Between Civic and Commercial
Line the five events up side by side and a pattern shows up. The nature celebration and the State of the City address are both civic, both organized through the city or the Chamber of Commerce, and both tied to Beverly Hills as a place people participate in rather than pay to visit. Fleur de Villes and the Best Kept Secret Tour sit on the other side of that line. One is a licensed floral installation built around an HBO series. The other is a $20 ticket for a self-guided tour organized by Friends of Greystone, which offers a dedicated date and historic photographs on display alongside the walk through the house.
The city hasn't stopped treating Greystone as a resident amenity. Beverly Hills residents can book the mansion for weddings and private events up to 11 months in advance, a full month ahead of the 10-month window given to non-residents. That priority window still exists. It just now sits next to a fall calendar that leans more heavily on ticketed, third-party programming than the mansion's calendar has in past years.
Planning Around It
- Free entry, no ticket: the first Saturday or Sunday of September or October 2026. November's version falls inside the Fleur de Villes run and won't function as a free walk-through weekend.
- The floral exhibition: tickets for Fleur de Villes cover Oct. 28 through Nov. 4, and the mansion's own site lists ticket information directly.
- A quieter, paid alternative: the Best Kept Secret Tour on Nov. 22 covers similar ground to the free program, self-guided through the first floor, for $20 through Friends of Greystone.
- Photography: posed or commercial photography, including engagement and family photos, requires a permit on any visit, free or ticketed.
- December: there is no self-guided program at all. The free version returns in January.
Anyone who treats Greystone as a routine, once-a-month stop should plan the November trip differently than the other ten months on the calendar. The mansion isn't closed. It's just booked with something that costs money for the one weekend that usually doesn't.
If you're weighing what a landmark like Greystone means for property values or timing a move near Beverly Hills' hillside parks, Joseph Babajian has spent more than two decades reading exactly these kinds of local details. Reach out for a conversation grounded in the neighborhood, not just the listing.
