Greystone Mansion offers up a fun day trip

by Leila Claudio

LW contributor

I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 56 years and never visited Greystone Mansion in all that time until now. It had been on my radar though.

I finally got to see it. I thought it was just a venue for making movies, but little did I know that Greystone had its own little juicy bit of scandal.

Greystone was built in 1928 by Edward Doheny, who was born in 1892. He was from an Irish-Catholic family who discovered oil in Los Angeles, and later in Mexico. At that time, he was the largest oil producer in the world.

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Greystone sat on 400 acres of land around what is now Beverly Hills. It had 15 live-in staff with their own two floors of servants' quarters, 46,000 feet of living space, 16 acres of gardens, tennis and basketball courts, two swimming pools, two waterfalls, stables and 50 miles of trails over which family could ride their horses from Beverly Hills to the ocean. It had its own security force, fire department and water supply.

Doheny, through his son Ned, bribed the then Secretary of the Interior with $100,000 to be able to drill on government land.

When the cash was delivered, Ned and his secretary Hugh got caught. All three were indicted, but Ned Sr. got off. Ned Jr. and his secretary were found with gunshot wounds to the head. The Beverly Hills police department covered up their findings within 48 hours. The family only lived there for five months due to the murder. So what really happened? A mystery.

My new friend Jean and I went to the farmer's market on Fairfax after, then on to get gelato ice cream. What I wasn't expecting was that the ice cream parlor was next to my favorite clam pizza joint in Larchmont Village. We went there first to order our pizzas, then lined up for my chocolate-almond gelato, then picked up our pizzas before heading home. Information about self-guided mansion tours can be found at https://beverlyhills.org/435/Inside-the-Mansion.