Stoneview Nature Center

Stoneview Nature Center is a county-operated garden and educational facility in Culver City, California along the Park to Playa Trail.

The nature center building and gardens are part of a “transformation of a five-acre brownfield site in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Culver City, California.” The main building, designed by Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects, is 4000 ft2 and features community space, a meeting/classroom, an outdoor kitchen, and bathrooms.

The park, which has a focus on native California and edible plantings, includes a raised-bed Mediterranean demonstration garden, a native grass meadow, and installations by the contemporary art collective Fallen Fruit. The edible landscaping includes oranges, avocados, figs, grapes, lemons, blackberries, and blueberries, and less-familiar California native edibles including lemonade berry, coffee berry and prickly pear.

Fitness equipment and workout classes are offered at the park. Stoneview is a key segment of the 13 mi Park to Playa Trail; “good views of L.A. are guaranteed on the dirt-and-paved track from Baldwin Hills to Playa del Rey.”

The center operates an apiary in partnership with HoneyLove as well as a furnishing an elaborate hotel for native bee, both as part of a public outreach campaign on the importance of pollinating insects.

Stoneview was recommended by local public-radio station KCRW as an outdoor refuge during the pandemic.

The land was previously a primary school campus from 1956 to 2010, and was acquired by the Baldwin Hills Regional Conservation Authority in 2011.