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A spring people once bottled as a fountain of youth, a fern garden planted in 1912, a nature museum that closed in 1978, and the quiet front door to the park for the streets above it.
What is Fern Dell, and why do Los Feliz neighbors love it?
Fern Dell is about twenty acres of shade at the southwest corner of Griffith Park: a spring-fed ravine, a stream with small pools and cascades, stone bridges, and more than 50 kinds of fern. For anyone searching Fern Dell Griffith Park history, the short version is a century of layers: Gabrielino council grounds, a 1912 fern garden, Depression-era stonework, and a restoration still underway. Debbie Pisaro, a Los Feliz realtor with Coastline 840 (DRE #01369110), has walked more than one buyer up the Fern Dell path on a first showing.
Walk a block north of Los Feliz Boulevard on Fern Dell Drive and the temperature changes before the view does. The sound of traffic drops, the light goes green, and the canyon floor opens into water and fern.
Most people who know Fern Dell know it as a walk: a short, shaded loop at the bottom of Western Canyon, the easy way to start a hike up to the Observatory, or a place to sit by the water on a hot afternoon. Fewer know how old it is, who planted it, or that the land under it is a designated city monument. This is the long version, for neighbors, visitors and buyers curious why the streets above it are some of the most wanted in Los Feliz.
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The park, the neighborhood and its quiet listings, written by Debbie Pisaro.
Join the Los Feliz Living list Or call (310) 362-6429Where is Fern Dell in Griffith Park, and how do you get in?
Fern Dell sits where Los Feliz meets the Hollywood Hills. Western Avenue turns into Los Feliz Boulevard, and Fern Dell Drive heads north into the park from the boulevard. Hikespeak puts the entrance to the nature trail on the left side of Fern Dell Drive, about 450 feet up from the boulevard, beside the Griffith Park sign and the bronze bear cub statue that greet the park's visitors.
Fern Dell has no street number of its own, and that trips people up. The Cultural Landscape Foundation files it under 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles 90027, a Griffith Park address on the other side of the park from the Fern Dell gate. The address that actually puts you in the canyon is The Trails cafe, at 2333 Fern Dell Drive, Los Angeles 90068, near the top of the trail. Enter on Fern Dell Drive, not Crystal Springs Drive.
If you live in Los Feliz, you probably do not drive to Fern Dell at all. As Debbie Pisaro explains in living next to Griffith Park in Los Feliz, Fern Dell Drive is the gentlest way into the park, the entrance parents use with strollers and dogs, and for the blocks above the boulevard it is a walk from the front door. It is also one stop in the guide to walkable Los Feliz near Griffith Park.
A fern garden that started in 1912
Long before it was a garden, the canyon was a gathering place. The Cultural Landscape Foundation describes it as the Mococahuenga council grounds, used by the Gabrielino for tribal meetings, and Friends of Griffith Park notes that Mocohenga Canyon may have been an earlier name for Fern Dell. Friends of Griffith Park also estimates that people first came to the Fern Dell area about 10,000 years ago. The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County calls it a village site of the Tongva, also known as the Gabrielino.
The park itself came in December 1896, when Colonel Griffith J. Griffith gave his ranch to the City of Los Angeles. In 1910, Frank Shearer, a well-known plantsman, became the city's Superintendent of Parks, and in 1912 he began planting native and imported ferns in this natural canyon in the park's southwestern corner. The ferns gave the place its name, written today as both Fern Dell and Ferndell.
The spring is the other half of the story. By the early twentieth century, health-seekers came to sip from Fern Dell's spring-fed well, which they believed had curative powers. As the Los Angeles Times put it, in a passage quoted by the Cultural Landscape Foundation, starlets and health-seekers lined up in the 1920s to fill jugs from the spring.
By the start of the 1920s, the first of Fern Dell's rustic bridges, footpaths and faux bois features were in place, designed by the Montgomery Brothers, landscape architects from New Zealand.
The stonework of the Depression years
Much of what you walk past today was built by hand during the Great Depression. Civilian Conservation Corps artisans and workers, who lived in three Works Progress Administration camps inside the park, enlarged Fern Dell and built its stone-lined water features, picnic areas, benches, masonry retaining walls and railings.
Look for the smaller markers of those years, too. Friends of Griffith Park points walkers to a 1926 comfort station, a CCC water fountain, and a bust of the Norwegian explorer Leif Erikson, donated by the Nordic Civic League in 1936. The bear cub at the entrance came later, in 1976, presented to its sister city, Los Angeles, by the people of free Berlin.
The Fern Dell Nature Museum, 1952 to 1978
At the park entrance on Red Oak Drive, near Fern Dell Drive, stands a modest one-story 1927 Spanish Revival cottage. It was built as the cottage at the Western Avenue entrance to Griffith Park and later housed the watchman. In the fall of 1951, the Department of Recreation and Parks drew plans to turn it into a museum, and the Fern Dell Nature Museum opened on April 20, 1952.
Friends of Griffith Park credits the idea to Ranger Bill Eckert, hired in 1949 as a gardener and a grower of prize-winning ferns. The museum ran until 1978, when funding cuts tied to Proposition 13 forced it to close. In 1988 the cottage went back to being a residence, and it lives on today as the ranger house. The name stuck to the canyon, though: you will still see the whole glen called the Ferndell Nature Museum, on the idea that the plants and animals living there are the exhibit.
Decline, and the long repair
Fern Dell has been slowly wearing down since regular, skilled maintenance of its architecture and plantings ended in the 1970s. The Cultural Landscape Foundation still lists it as at risk. Friends of Griffith Park, a nonprofit that works to conserve the park, has led the effort to bring it back, and in 2019 it rebuilt the historic pedestrian bridge with the Department of Recreation and Parks.
The city recognized the whole of Griffith Park as a Historic-Cultural Monument in 2009, with Fern Dell counted as a contributing feature. That sits alongside the older #112 designation for the Gabrielino site at the entrance, and alongside other park-edge landmarks in Los Feliz such as the Mulholland Fountain, HCM #162. Debbie Pisaro tracks the neighborhood's designated places on the Los Feliz Historic Homes page.
Fern Dell is loved, not finished. The stream, the stonework and the plantings all need steady care, and a garden this old only stays this good when the neighborhood keeps showing up for it.
What Debbie sees at Fern Dell
Fern Dell is one of those places I never get tired of taking people. I love bringing buyers here, especially on a warm day, when you step under the trees, hear the water and feel the temperature drop. It reminds me that one of the best things about living in Los Feliz is having a little piece of nature like this just around the corner.
Los Feliz, off the market
Some of the best homes near the park trade before they hit the public sites. See what is moving quietly.
Join the Pocket Listings listThe streets above Fern Dell
The blocks climbing above Los Feliz Boulevard toward Fern Dell are among the closest pockets in the neighborhood to Griffith Park. Fern Dell Place runs through the Los Feliz Oaks, and its landmarks include Franmar, the 1923 house at 2207 N. Fern Dell Place, designated HCM #1121, one of the houses covered in the landmarked houses of the Oaks. Laughlin Park sits a short distance below.
For buyers, the park gate matters the way a beach does in a coastal town: it is the thing the house is next to, and it will never be built on. If you are weighing the hills against the flats, start with choosing a Los Feliz neighborhood, then see what is available off market in Los Feliz, where much of the inventory near the park changes hands.
For owners near Fern Dell, the canyon is part of the value. Debbie Pisaro can tell you what your Los Feliz home is worth today, block by block, including what a short walk to the Fern Dell gate adds. Debbie Pisaro is a 24-year veteran, founder of Coastline 840, and an Inman Luxury Leader, representing buyers and sellers across Los Feliz and the surrounding neighborhoods. Many of the homes she sells never reach the open market.
If you would rather start with the neighborhood than a listing, the Los Feliz neighborhood guide covers the Village, the hills and the park, and Los Feliz Places lists the spots locals actually use, The Trails included. When you are ready to talk about a home near the park, a Los Feliz realtor who walks these paths is a good place to start.
debbie@coastline840.com
DRE #01369110 · 160 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026
Coastline 840 is a DBA of Side, Inc., CA DRE #02014153
Fern Dell, answered
Where is Fern Dell in Griffith Park?
Fern Dell is at the southwest corner of Griffith Park, on Fern Dell Drive just north of Los Feliz Boulevard, where Western Avenue becomes the boulevard. The entrance sits beside the Griffith Park sign and the bronze bear cub statue, and The Trails cafe is at 2333 Fern Dell Drive, Los Angeles 90068, near the top of the trail.
Does Fern Dell have an address?
Not one of its own. The Cultural Landscape Foundation lists Fern Dell under 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles 90027, a Griffith Park address on the other side of the park, not the Fern Dell gate. The practical address is 2333 Fern Dell Drive, Los Angeles 90068, The Trails cafe, which sits near the top of the trail.
Who planted Fern Dell's ferns?
Frank Shearer, a plantsman who became Los Angeles Superintendent of Parks in 1910, began planting native and imported ferns in the canyon in 1912, according to the Cultural Landscape Foundation. The garden took its name from those plantings, and today more than 50 fern species grow along the stream, alongside tropical plants, succulents and flowers.
Is Fern Dell a Historic-Cultural Monument?
Yes, in two ways. A plaque at the Fern Dell entrance marks Historic-Cultural Monument #112, a Gabrielino (Tongva) village site recognized in 1973, according to Friends of Griffith Park. Separately, the city designated all of Griffith Park a Historic-Cultural Monument in 2009, with Fern Dell recognized as a contributing feature of that designation.
What happened to the Fern Dell Nature Museum?
The Fern Dell Nature Museum opened on April 20, 1952, inside a 1927 Spanish Revival cottage at the park entrance on Red Oak Drive. It closed in 1978, when Proposition 13 cut park funding. In 1988 the cottage became a residence again, and today it is a ranger house, not a public museum.
Can you walk from Fern Dell up to Griffith Observatory?
Yes. A spur of the Fern Dell trail heads east toward Griffith Observatory, and Hikespeak puts the climb at about a mile one way, roughly 2.6 miles round trip from the Fern Dell trail. It is steeper than the canyon floor, so most people walk Fern Dell first, then decide whether to keep climbing.
Is Fern Dell good for dogs?
Yes. Fern Dell Drive is the gentlest way into Griffith Park from Los Feliz, the entrance parents use with strollers and neighbors use with their dogs. The canyon floor is a short, shaded walk along the stream, with small bridges and benches by the water, and The Trails cafe welcomes dogs on its patio.
Which streets border Fern Dell?
The blocks climbing above Los Feliz Boulevard toward Fern Dell, including Fern Dell Place in the Los Feliz Oaks, sit closest to the canyon. Laughlin Park is a short distance below. In these pockets the Fern Dell gate is a walk from the front door, and that proximity is part of how homes here are priced.
Who is a good real estate agent for homes near Griffith Park in Los Feliz?
Debbie Pisaro of Coastline 840 has sold architectural and historic homes across Los Feliz for 24 years, including the park-edge pockets near Fern Dell, the Oaks and Laughlin Park. She is an Inman Luxury Leader, and many of the homes she sells never reach the open market. Reach her at (310) 362-6429.