Backyard & Outdoor Living in Westwood

Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS). Private pools in the City of Los Angeles are permitted through a Combined Building-Mechanical permit, while pools serving more than two dwelling units need separate building, electrical, plumbing and mechanical permits. Using a City of Los Angeles standard plan on file with LADBS reduces plan check time. Nearly all of Westwood, its flat southern blocks included, lies inside the city's Hillside Grading Area, so excavating for a permitted pool here also requires a separate LADBS grading permit. The community sits outside the city's mapped Hillside Area, the zone where Baseline Hillside Ordinance limits apply. Specific plans that require Design Review Board approval cover most of Westwood's multifamily and commercial areas, including Westwood Village and North Westwood Village, while its single-family blocks generally fall outside them. We prepare the drawings, make the submittal and handle plan-check corrections ourselves, so you are not the one chasing plan check.

The largest lots sit in the Minimum Residential area east of Beverly Glen Boulevard and north of Holmby Park. Generally smaller home sites on undulating ground lie east and west of the UCLA campus and south of Wilshire Boulevard. High-rise condominium towers line Wilshire between the Los Angeles Country Club and Malcolm Avenue, with single-family streets extending north and south of that corridor. One local condition that shapes the work: Terrain runs from flat land in the southern section to rolling hillside in the north, so the grading and drainage approach for a pool near Santa Monica Boulevard can differ markedly from one on a sloping lot closer to Sunset Boulevard.

All of it, including Holmby Hills, Holmby Westwood, Westwood Hills and Comstock Hills. Our crews run every job out of our Cahuenga Pass base in Los Angeles, with our own people on site.

Full backyard transformation: generally $50,000 to $250,000+ across Southern California. What moves it is how much hardscape is involved, whether a pool or outdoor kitchen is included, grading and retaining, and the level of lighting and planting. We give line-item pricing after seeing the site rather than quoting a number over the phone.

A patio and turf refresh often finishes in three to five weeks. A full transformation with hardscape, an outdoor kitchen, structures and lighting typically runs ten to sixteen weeks, and longer if a pool is part of the same phase.

Pavers cost more up front but flex with ground movement instead of cracking, and individual units can be lifted and replaced. Poured concrete is cheaper initially, but a crack means cutting out and repouring a section that rarely matches. On most Southern California soil we recommend pavers for anything you will look at every day.

Yes, and on most projects we insist on it. Correcting grade and adding proper drainage while the yard is already open is far cheaper than retrofitting it after new hardscape is down.

Yes. Design, permits, hardscape, structures, kitchen, lighting and planting run through one team and one project manager, so nothing gets lost between trades.