Drive down Whitsett Avenue past the old Weddington Golf and Tennis site and you'll see the same thing you've seen for two years: a sound wall, cranes, and a chain-link fence with a rendering zip-tied to it. Drive the other direction toward Laurel Canyon Boulevard and you'll see something new this year: a pay station at the Wilacre Park lot, the trailhead everyone in this neighborhood has used for free since 2014.
Those two facts landed in the same twelve months, and nobody has put them side by side. One long-standing free amenity in Studio City just started charging. A much larger one, still behind that fence, is about to open without one.
What Actually Sat Behind That Fence
Harvard-Westlake School bought the 16.1-acre Weddington Golf and Tennis property in October 2017 for roughly $42 million. For decades before that sale, it operated as a walk-up par-3 course and driving range, no membership, no country-club fee structure, just a bucket of balls and a lesson book. That informality is part of why the closure stung when it happened.
The LA City Council approved Harvard-Westlake's replacement plan, River Park, unanimously in November 2023. A small group of opponents filed for an injunction to stop construction after that approval. The LA Superior Court denied it, ruling the opponents were unlikely to prevail and that work should continue without delay. Demolition started in April 2024.
The finished project combines that 16.1-acre golf site with an adjacent 1.1-acre strip of land along the Los Angeles River that Harvard-Westlake leases from LA County, for a total footprint of about 17.2 acres. On it: two athletic fields with bleacher seating, eight tennis courts, a 52-meter pool, and an 80,249-square-foot gymnasium with a maximum height of 30 feet. MATT Construction, the general contractor, puts the underground parking at more than 300 stalls, tucked below grade next to a stormwater retention basin.
The Six Acres That Work Like the Old Course Did
Here's the number that matters more than the acreage total: of that 17.2-acre site, Harvard-Westlake has committed six acres specifically as public open space along the river, meaning a perimeter trail and riverside plazas open to everyone, no school affiliation required. That's the part of River Park built to function the way the old driving range did. Walk up, no sign-in.
The other eleven acres are different. The fields, the pool, the courts, and the gym are described as shared use between Harvard-Westlake students and the surrounding community, but shared use on a school-owned athletic campus almost always means a schedule. As of this writing, Harvard-Westlake hasn't published what that schedule looks like: whether the pool has open community hours, whether the gym is bookable, whether the tennis courts require reservations the way most public courts in Los Angeles already do. The six acres are the part you can count on without waiting for an announcement.
"I can't wait to welcome you to Harvard-Westlake's River Park."
That's school president Rick Commons, addressing the crowd at a construction milestone event. It's a warm line, and it's also an honest one: the welcome is real, but it's a campus welcome, extended by the property owner, not an unrestricted public easement.
Where the Timeline Actually Stands
| Milestone | Status |
|---|---|
| Site purchased | October 2017, approximately $42 million |
| City Council approval | November 2023, unanimous |
| Legal challenge | Injunction denied by LA Superior Court |
| Construction start | April 2024 |
| Gym steel frame raised | Spring 2025 |
| Structures enclosed, landscaping underway | Fall 2025 |
| Target opening | Fall 2026 |
| First gym basketball games | Planned by end of 2026 |
The Harvard-Westlake Chronicle reported the $200 million project was roughly 85 percent funded by donations as of late 2025, according to the school's chief financial officer. Construction crews found something unexpected while grading the old fairways: thousands of golf balls buried since the 1960s, some stamped with the names of the course's earlier owners, George McCallister and Joe Kirkwood Jr. The Los Angeles Times reported the school plans to have an artist turn the salvaged balls into a school logo installation, and that the new gym will seat more than 1,000.
The Other Side of the Ledger
Meanwhile, the Wilacre Park lot at Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Fryman Road, the main entrance to the Betty B. Dearing Trail, started charging for parking again in 2026 after roughly a decade of free access that began in 2014. The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority manages that lot and reinstated the fee after the county subsidy that had covered it went away. If you've hiked Fryman anytime in the past ten years without giving parking a second thought, this year is the one where that stopped being automatic.
It's worth sizing that trailhead against what's coming at River Park. Wilacre connects to Coldwater Canyon Park, the 44-acre park that's home to TreePeople and its seven miles of trails, drawing more than 50,000 visitors a year without charging admission to walk the grounds. That's the existing free-access anchor for outdoor space in this part of the Valley. River Park's six public acres won't replace it, the scale is different and the terrain is flat riverfront rather than canyon trail, but it adds a second no-fee green space option a few minutes from Ventura Boulevard, at the exact moment the older option started asking for a credit card.
What to Actually Watch For This Fall
A few things haven't been announced yet, and they're the ones worth tracking as the opening date gets closer:
- Whether Harvard-Westlake publishes specific public hours for the trail and riverside plazas, or whether access is simply open during daylight
- Whether the pool, gym, and tennis courts get a posted community-use schedule, and whether any of it requires reservations or fees
- Where the public entrances actually are along Whitsett Avenue and the river frontage
- Whether the salvaged golf-ball art piece ends up somewhere visible from the public side of the site
None of that changes the headline. Six acres of new, walk-up public space is opening in Studio City this fall, on a site that spent 60 years being exactly that kind of place before it closed. The rest of the campus is Harvard-Westlake's to schedule.
If you're watching how Studio City's outdoor spaces are shifting this year, whether it's River Park's opening, the Fryman fee, or anything else changing block by block, I track this neighborhood closely because I work in it every day. Mario Acosta is based a few miles away in Sherman Oaks and covers Studio City as part of his regular Valley coverage. If you want a straight read on how a specific street or property fits into what's changing here, reach out.
