Horse riding in the Hollywood Hills

Swap Sunset Boulevard for Sunset Ranch and discover a whole other side to the high-life in Los Angeles, says Oliver Poole


Built on the side of a hill overlooking Los Angeles, the Hollywood sign looms over the city the film industry helped create. In popular imagination this sign is part of that industry, symbolising glamour, celebrity and razzmatazz. 

Yet when first erected a century ago, its purpose was very different. It was built to highlight a more rustic Los Angeles; one that still survives amid the city’s production deals, nightclubs and freeways if you look hard enough. In 1923 the letters were put up by a real estate company wanting to promote its new upscale housing development: Hollywoodland. This was a development that promised peace and quiet in the heart of the city. 

That is why they built it in a stretch of wilderness that now makes up part of LA’s Griffith Park. So untamed was the area back then that the supporting posts had to be carried up by a caravan of mules.

Much has changed since, not least the loss of the letters L, A, N and D from the sign’s far end after the rotting structure was rebuilt in 1949. But if you take the turn off the 101 Freeway into Los Feliz and drive up the meandering curves and stucco villas of North Beachwood Drive, you’ll find a gate beyond which some of that old world still survives.

Once through the gate, a gravel path follows the base of a ravine. Walk up and, almost a stone’s throw from where the sign clings to its hillside, you’ll find yourself amid the Old West, complete with rust-coloured earth and spindly vegetation. 

This is Griffith Park, some 4,000 acres carved out from the far eastern edge of the Santa Monica Mountains. It was founded after the wonderfully named Griffith J Griffith, who made a fortune from gold mines, donated the land to the city. And it is here that you come across Sunset Ranch as it has stood for generations — a slice of life seemingly straight out of an old cowboy movie.

This ranch is not a grand place. Seven weather-worn wooden structures surround a beaten-up timber corral filled with horses of all sizes and descriptions. The main office is a shack. The manager lives in an old farmstead to one side. Past it, a dusty trail is cut into the hillside. Mustangs wait patiently at a hitching post.

Al fresco drinks at Sunset Saloon

It may not look modern but it is a haven that provides the perfect entry point to the surrounding wilderness. This is the Los Angeles I learned about when I lived in the city a decade ago, and which each year draws me and my family back to visit.

When people think of a holiday in Los Angeles they think of nightclubs and beaches. But for me, my partner and our children, it is the perfect place to come and relax, to horse-ride cowboy style, and to know that when we escape London, even in winter, it will be sunny every day.

Sunset Ranch is always our first stop. First established in 1923, the site was originally where those drawn to the Hollywoodland development got on their horses. Since 1954 it has been in the hands of the Smith family, and some 60 steeds are now housed there, with groups taking them out, led by wranglers, along the surrounding bridal trails.

The Rivergate Estate’s pool

No reservations are taken and the horses are rented on a first-come, first-served basis. Once a month they do an evening ride with dinner at a rustic Mexican tavern, while on certain other days they take people out in the late afternoon to the park’s highest point, with a view over Griffith Observatory, before heading back to the ranch for a barbecue and live music.

Sunset Ranch is not the only rural pursuit on offer. Griffith Park Horse Rental offers its own trail rides, while along the north side of the park stand row after row of equestrian centres, the surrounding streets and paths filled with trucks carrying hay and food pellets and the road signs marked with warnings to the few cars that come this way to watch out for riders.

For those who prefer travelling on two legs rather than four, hours can be spent hiking the paths and exploring the canyons, the land so wild that you even have to be on the lookout for the mountain lions that still prowl the hills. 

The city backdrop

Yet you can never quite escape showbiz — inevitably as Griffith Park has been used as the setting for more than 500 films and TV shows over the years — but that only adds to the interest. Cross over a crest and you may find yourself looking down into Bronson Canyon and realise this was where the Batmobile emerged from the Batcave in the Sixties TV series. Another few trails and you can realise you are in the ravine that the helicopters flew by during the opening credits of M.A.S.H.

If, like us, the purpose of your trip is a dash for the sun and to escape the bustle of London, then you also need a suitably relaxing place to stay. We found that at the Rivergate Estate, a former stable complex by the park that’s been converted into a series of bungalow studio apartments amid a palatial garden. 

You could spend your entire break here, and at times we’ve spent days barely leaving the complex other than to stock up on food in the nearby chic shopping district of Burbank. The studios are decorated with an artist’s eye, have their own kitchens, TVs with Netflix and cable, and garden chairs to lounge in.

A young learner

There is a heated pool and a hot tub. At night you can sit cooking burgers over the barbecue pit and stare up at the stars wondering why you continue to stay amid the Underground and the UK’s long winter nights rather than joining those living the good life on the other side of the Atlantic.

It is the park, and its rural idyll, that keeps drawing us back. You can get almost beside the Hollywood sign, its letters poking out of the same old-West scrubland on which Sunset Ranch is built, and from there you can stare down onto the sprawl of modern Los Angeles with the Pacific glinting in the distance. And — when you have looked enough — you can turn your back on it and head off down the nearest trail, the dust being kicked up by your feet or a horse’s hooves as you pull away.  

Details: Los Angeles

Norwegian ( flies from Gatwick to Los Angeles.

The Rivergate Estate ( One-bedroom self-catering cabins from $250 (£198) a night.