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The Beverly Hills Dossier

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The Record

Virginia Robinson Gardens: How to Visit the Oldest Estate in Beverly Hills

The 1911 Beaux Arts house and its six acres of gardens are open only by reservation. Here's how to get in.

By the editors of The Beverly Hills Dossier ·

Beverly Hills was barely a subdivision when Virginia Dryden Robinson and her husband Harry Winchester Robinson, heir to the J. W. Robinson’s department store, built their home on what’s now Elden Way. The estate is generally described as the earliest in Beverly Hills. Its six acres of gardens are now run by Los Angeles County.

The house and the pavilion

The main house was designed in 1911 in the Beaux Arts style by architect Nathaniel Dryden, Virginia’s father. The Robinsons filled it with antiques and objects they collected on their travels. In 1924 they added a Renaissance Revival pool pavilion, with sgraffito panels on its arches and a long pool lined with mosaic tile.

Five gardens

The grounds are laid out as five distinct gardens:

  • Italian Renaissance Terrace Garden, with citrus terraces and camellias, gardenias and azaleas planted under old magnolias.
  • Formal Mall Garden, with perennial borders and rare cycads.
  • Rose Garden, with heirloom roses.
  • Kitchen Garden, a potager of vegetables and herbs.
  • Tropical Palm Garden, whose grove of king palms is reported to be the largest in the continental United States.

The estate was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It’s also a California Point of Historical Interest and is on the City of Beverly Hills’ local register of historic properties.

How to visit (as of November 2026)

These details come from Los Angeles County Parks. Check before you go, because tour schedules change monthly.

  • Tours by reservation only. Walk-ins are not allowed. Reserve through robinsongardens.org.
  • Days: Tuesday through Saturday. Closed Sunday and Monday.
  • Admission: adults $15; students with ID and seniors 62+ $11; children 5–12 $6.
  • Parking: on site only, and free with an advance parking reservation. Parking on Elden Way is prohibited, and space is limited, so carpool if you can.
  • Address: 1008 Elden Way, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Phone: (310) 550-2087.

For more of the city’s early grand houses, see our pieces on Greystone and Pickfair and Greenacres.