TreePeople and Coldwater Canyon Park: A Studio City Guide
Studio City · Field notes
On the ridge above Studio City sits a 45-acre park, a working environmental nonprofit, and an amphitheatre that hosts moonlight hikes. Here is how to visit, and why the protected land shapes the homes below it.
The short answer
Coldwater Canyon Park is a 45-acre City of Los Angeles park on Mulholland Drive above Studio City, home to the nonprofit TreePeople. The trails are free during daylight, the S. Mark Taper Foundation Amphitheatre hosts events, and the long-running Moonlight Hikes pair live music with a guided walk. For the homes just below the ridge, Debbie Pisaro treats the permanent protected open space as a real amenity, because no neighbor can build over it.
Most people who live in Studio City know the park is up there without knowing quite what it is. Drive Coldwater Canyon Avenue to the top, where it meets Mulholland Drive, and the neighborhood of flats and sushi restaurants gives way to 45 acres of oak, chaparral, and view. That land is Coldwater Canyon Park, a City of Los Angeles park, and it is also the headquarters of TreePeople, one of the most established environmental nonprofits in the region. Debbie Pisaro sends buyers up here often, because the ridge explains a lot about why the hillside Studio City neighborhoods below it feel the way they do.
Where the park sits, and what it is
Coldwater Canyon Park occupies the ridge line where Coldwater Canyon Avenue tops out at Mulholland Drive, directly above the north-facing hills of Studio City. It is a full 45 acres of City of Los Angeles parkland, open to the public, and it doubles as the home base for TreePeople. The two things are easy to conflate, so it helps to separate them: the park is public land, and TreePeople is the nonprofit that operates programming, a nursery, and an education center on it.
The setting matters because the park does not sit alone. Its trails feed into a cross-mountain greenbelt of more than 1,000 acres that stitches together Wilacre Park, Franklin Canyon, and Fryman Canyon, so a walk that starts at the ridge can turn into a long loop across the Santa Monica Mountains. For a sense of how these paths connect to the wider neighborhood, Debbie covers the adjacent trailheads in her notes on Wilacre Park and on the everyday question of where to go on a perfect-weather day in Studio City.
A short history of TreePeople
TreePeople began with a teenager and an idea. In 1973, at 18, Andy Lipkis founded what he first called the California Conservation Project, and in 1974 it took the name TreePeople. The premise was simple and stubborn: cities need trees, and ordinary people can plant and care for them at scale. Over the decades that followed, the organization has worked with more than 2 million people to plant and tend more than 2 million trees across the Los Angeles region.
The campus on the ridge grew into a working environmental center. It includes a native plant nursery, an Urban Watershed Garden that demonstrates how a hillside lot can capture and reuse rainwater, and the education staff sometimes referred to by the affectionate title of the "Dirt Doctor." Visitors can join a free 90-minute Public Family Tour, take an Eco-Tour of the grounds, or simply walk the trails on their own. It is a rare thing in Los Angeles: a headquarters for a serious nonprofit that also functions as a public park anyone can wander into during daylight.
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Join the Just Studio City list or call (310) 362-6429The amphitheatre on the ridge
The centerpiece of the campus is the S. Mark Taper Foundation Amphitheatre, built in 1997 with support from an unusually starry list of donors, including Steve Martin, Bonnie Raitt, Ron Howard, and Johnny Carson. It gave TreePeople an open-air stage for talks, ceremonies, and music, tucked into the trees at the top of the canyon.
The amphitheatre was renovated from 2020 to 2022, and it reopened with a 50th-anniversary benefit concert that drew Beck, Van Dyke Parks, and Courtney Barnett to the ridge. For a neighborhood that thinks of itself as the quiet side of the hill from the studios, it was a reminder that Studio City has always had one foot in the entertainment world. Debbie tracks the venues and events that give the area its rhythm on the Studio City calendar, and the amphitheatre is one of the more distinctive rooms in town.
The Moonlight Hikes
The best-known TreePeople tradition is the Moonlight Hike, and it has been running in one form or another for more than 40 years. The series returned in January 2022 through a partnership with Living Earth, and the format has settled into a reliable shape: live music at the amphitheatre at 7 p.m., then a guided hike that steps off at 8 p.m. under the moon. Hikers choose between two routes, the Coyote Crawl, which is the easier and shorter option, and the Night Owl Prowl, which is the advanced route with more distance and climb.
The 2026 summer series is a good illustration of how it runs. It opened on Friday, May 22 with Holy Pepperoni, continued with a Public Family Tour on Sunday, June 7, then Friday, June 26 with Mutual Benefit, and Friday, July 24 with Sun Kin, which is still to come as of this writing. Because the series recurs every summer and the lineup changes, the reliable move is to check treepeople.org for the current calendar and to buy tickets there. The music-then-walk format tends to fill up, so it is worth planning a little ahead rather than showing up cold.
Off-market
A large share of the best hillside houses near the canyon trade quietly, before they ever reach the open market. Debbie keeps a running list of pocket listings for buyers who want the first look.
See the pocket listingsGetting there and parking
The park sits at the top of Coldwater Canyon Avenue where it meets Mulholland Drive, and there are two sensible ways to arrive. The direct route is to drive up Coldwater Canyon Avenue from Ventura Boulevard to the ridge. There is a parking grove at the corner of Coldwater Canyon Avenue and Mulholland Drive, but the spaces are limited, so TreePeople encourages carpooling and rideshare, and that advice matters most on event nights.
The other route is to park lower down at Wilacre Park on Fryman Road and hike up to the ridge, which takes roughly 35 minutes. That approach turns the visit into a proper walk and sidesteps the parking crunch at the top entirely. Either way, once you are on the ridge you are connected into the larger greenbelt, so a short visit can stretch into a long one. If you are the kind of visitor who wants to understand the trail fees and logistics around the wider canyon system, Debbie walks through the details in her piece on the Fryman Canyon parking fee.
Not the Beverly Hills Coldwater Canyon Park
One point of confusion is worth clearing up, because it trips up newcomers and their navigation apps alike. Beverly Hills has its own Coldwater Canyon Park, a separate and much smaller site near Sunset Boulevard. It is a different place with the same name. The park that is home to TreePeople is the larger one on Mulholland Drive, on the ridge above Studio City. If you are heading to a Moonlight Hike or a Public Family Tour, the Mulholland location is the one you want, and the Sunset-adjacent Beverly Hills park will not get you there.
What protected open space means for the homes below
Here is where the park stops being only a nice amenity and starts being a real estate fact. The land on the ridge is permanent, protected open space, and the trails connect into a greenbelt of more than 1,000 acres. For the hillside homes just below it, in the Studio City Hills and the Fryman Canyon area, that permanence is worth money, because a neighbor cannot build over protected parkland. The view stays a view, and the quiet stays quiet.
That is a different kind of value than a renovated kitchen or an extra bedroom. It is durable in a way that improvements are not, and Debbie Pisaro prices it accordingly when she works with sellers and buyers near the canyon. A house that backs to protected land is not competing with a hypothetical future development next door, and that shows up in what informed buyers will pay. It is one of the recurring themes in the way she reads the Studio City market, and it sits alongside the broader questions covered on her guide to Studio City real estate. Boundary lines matter to this kind of value, too, which is why Debbie pays close attention to where the protected land ends and the buildable lots begin, a theme she picks up in her note on the Carpenter Community Charter boundary. For design-forward houses up on the ridge, she maps the significant homes on her Studio City architectural homes map, so the pricing conversation starts from the right comparables.
Homes near the canyon
Curious what a home that backs to protected open space near Coldwater Canyon is actually worth today? Ask Debbie for a read built from your street, not a zip-wide average.
Ask Debbie about homes near the canyonFrequently asked questions
Is TreePeople free to visit?
Yes. Coldwater Canyon Park is a 45-acre City of Los Angeles park, and the trails are free to the public during daylight hours. TreePeople, the environmental nonprofit headquartered there, offers a free 90-minute Public Family Tour and other programming, and some events such as the Moonlight Hikes are ticketed on treepeople.org.
Where do you park for TreePeople?
There is a small parking grove at the corner of Coldwater Canyon Avenue and Mulholland Drive. Spaces are limited, so TreePeople encourages carpooling and rideshare, especially on event nights. Many visitors instead park at Wilacre Park on Fryman Road and hike up to the ridge in about 35 minutes.
When are the 2026 Moonlight Hikes?
The 2026 summer Moonlight Hike series ran on Friday, May 22 with Holy Pepperoni, a Public Family Tour on Sunday, June 7, Friday, June 26 with Mutual Benefit, and Friday, July 24 with Sun Kin. The series recurs each summer, so the best source for the current calendar is treepeople.org.
What is the difference between the Coyote Crawl and the Night Owl Prowl?
Both are guided Moonlight Hike routes. The Coyote Crawl is the easier, shorter option suited to families and casual walkers. The Night Owl Prowl is the advanced route, with more distance and elevation for hikers who want a longer trek across the ridge.
Is this the same as the Beverly Hills Coldwater Canyon Park?
No. Beverly Hills has a separate, smaller Coldwater Canyon Park near Sunset Boulevard. The park that is home to TreePeople is a different, larger site on Mulholland Drive on the ridge above Studio City. They share a name but are not the same place.
Are homes near the canyon worth more?
Hillside homes near Coldwater Canyon and the Fryman Canyon area are generally priced with their proximity to protected open space in mind. Because the greenbelt is permanent, a neighbor cannot build over it, so the view and the quiet are an amenity that tends to hold value. Debbie Pisaro factors that protected-open-space premium into pricing for homes near the canyon.
How do you get to TreePeople?
TreePeople and Coldwater Canyon Park sit at the top of Coldwater Canyon Avenue where it meets Mulholland Drive, on the ridge above Studio City. Drive up Coldwater Canyon Avenue from Ventura Boulevard to Mulholland, or park at Wilacre Park on Fryman Road and hike up in about 35 minutes.
Can you hike to TreePeople from Wilacre Park?
Yes. The trail from Wilacre Park on Fryman Road climbs to the TreePeople ridge in roughly 35 minutes and connects into a cross-mountain greenbelt of more than 1,000 acres that links Wilacre, Franklin Canyon, and Fryman Canyon, so you can string together a much longer loop.
Planning a visit, or a move nearby
Coldwater Canyon Park rewards both the casual visitor and the serious one. You can walk the free trails on a whim, join a Public Family Tour to understand what TreePeople actually does, or plan a summer evening around a Moonlight Hike with music at the amphitheatre. Whatever you choose, treepeople.org is the place to confirm hours, tours, and the current event calendar before you go. For sellers and buyers weighing a home near the canyon, the park is more than a weekend perk; it is a permanent feature of the hillside that shapes value, and it is the kind of thing Debbie Pisaro is glad to walk through in person. If you are thinking about buying or selling on the ridge, her advice on how to sell a Studio City home starts from the block, and choosing the right Studio City agent starts with someone who knows why the land above the neighborhood matters. When you are ready to talk it through, her contact page is the quickest way to reach her.
Coastline 840
Work with Debbie Pisaro
Looking at a hillside home near Coldwater Canyon, and want the agent who prices the value of protected open space into the number? Reach Debbie directly.
Reach DebbieWritten by Debbie Pisaro, a 24-year California luxury agent and the founder of Coastline 840, DRE #01369110. Debbie lives in a 1907 Craftsman in Silver Lake with her dog, Lennon, and works every one of the Studio City micro-markets. Park details, tour times, and event dates are set by TreePeople and the City of Los Angeles and change seasonally; confirm the current calendar at treepeople.org before you visit. Coastline 840 · Studio City