Doheny Mansion

It as great to see the house, but the guides were a little sketch. The woman who gave the slide show obviously didn't look at the slides before the presentation, and the woman who gave us the tour of the house speculated on a piece of information that was easily confirmed as false by a two second internet search.

Beautiful home/mansion. Interesting history told of the Doheny family and their "neighborhood" by the docents. It must be nice to be so rich, although much was given to charity, too. We had one guide for the grounds, then a different docent for inside the house (tour includes the first floor only). Ended in a room with a great glass roof (where musical events are held sometimes). Knowledgeable guides made for an interesting morning, while the fineness of the architecture and furnishings made the tour a treat for the eyes. Well worth the $15 per person fee, which goes for the upkeep of the home.

Beautiful, peaceful campus. Made me want to look into enrolling. There is an entrance guard. You can’t just drive by.

Beautiful campus, "A Xmas Caroling" & "Xmas Dancing Festival Lessons, and Songs". campus, great staff and rich history... 11¹¹¹

I met with Her Majesty Queen Clarise Renaldi of Genovia at this consulate. We discussed pear exports with Portugal and France over tea. The setting was beautiful and provided for a relaxing afternoon.

Very nice place to tour. Great history and the architecture of the mansion is beautiful. Truly a highlight of the tour. We have been to the Doheny Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills and it is just as interesting. Advance reservations and prepayment is required.

Beautifully preserved home and well maintained establishment. The dome ceiling is beautiful when the sun shines through it. Love my school ❤ & special events hosted there created such fond memories.

I attended the Doheny Mansion Christmas reception and it was a wonderful event. The mansion is lovely, and the addition of Christmas decorations, an incredible Christmas tree, and the Victorian garbed carolers rounded out a lovely holiday event. The treats and drinks served were delicious. The docents are great sources of information about the house itself and the families that lived there. This will be one of my holiday events for years to come.

I really loved the design and architecture of this cute little mansion. The paintings are very feminine and i love that and the ceilings of the main event room was so nice and so detailed. The stain glass, I am such a fan of architecture and even though it's not something from like Italy or UK you can still appreciate it.

It's great to have historic homes accessible to public. We had a nice walk in the gardens . Thanks staff team for your hospitality!

I made my booking online and waited about 3 months to tour the Doheny Mansion. The tour lasted approximately 2 hours of what should have lasted probably one hour. About a 30 - 45 minutes of it was spent sitting in a house listening to the docent talk about the Doheny family and the Mount Saint Mary's College. We moved on to the tour area and we sat again, listening to the docent talk about the pool. Once we arrived at the Doheny House we split our large group into 2. Our guide wasn't really knowledgeable as she often looked at her index cards constantly for information about each room. I think she wouldn't be the right person to ask questions about the Doheny's. It was a bad sign that I kept on looking at my watch wondering what time the tour would end. At $20, I don't think the tour was worth money or very impressive if you'd done many architectural tours or palace tours during your travels. It was a bit boring and they lost my attention in the first hour of the tour. The most impressive room was the Pompei Room at the end of the tour. You're pretty much restricted to the first floor of the house as the upper floors are used as offices.

Wayyyyy too much history. Zero walking. All this talk of people and their homes we should at least be walking the neighborhood, viewing their homes, and getting out of this dreary living room. Been here for 45 mins now just sitting, listening to this woman ramble off random facts about nuns, poets, religion, oil companies...it's unfocused. Zany. We're here to see the home. Give us history as we see things, don't just lecture us. Sad to say this is just as useless of a tour as everyone else has said for years. They need to fix this!

Beautiful mansion! What a gem in LA. Tours are offered only once every 3 months. Advance reservations are for $20 and the tours lasts for over 2 hours. My only complaint is that you're not allowed to take photos in here...what a pity -2 starts The inside is breathtaking! What luxury! Times were so different 100 years ago. Blows my mind to imagine what LA used to be back in the day... Nuns now live inside the house. Gosh, how lucky for them, right? =P

Located on the campus of Mount St. Mary's College near USC (not on Doheny Drive), a monthly tour of the Doheny Mansion is offered which starts inside the neighboring Chester Place residence. The tour is supposed to last 2.5 hours, but ours lasted 2 hours which was plenty of time. Although they suggest comfortable walking shoes, there isn't that much walking. Registration and $25 payment is required in advance. Parking is available on the campus in front of the houses. Children under 12 are not allowed - not that this is something a child would want to do. The tour inside the Doheny Mansion only covers the guest areas on the main floor. The kitchen, servant areas, bedrooms, bathrooms, and basement were off-limits. If you don't take the tour, it's also possible to see parts of the Doheny Mansion during DaCamera concerts. Designed by Theodore Augustus Eisen and Sumner P. Hunt in 1899, the Doheny Mansion has the indulgence of turn-of-the-century oil money, but doesn't have the artistry. I guess the Doheny's had an eye for the ostentatious (along with the enormous Greystone Mansion), but not the elegant unlike the Huntington's in San Marino who had good taste. Basically, the outside of the house is big and ugly like a decorated concrete bunker. The inside is better with the sitting room and music room as the best rooms, but still largely replicates European decorative arts. The floor plan lacks a clean flow and the decoration lacks cohesion. This is was most evident in the splashy ballroom with a Tiffany glass themed ceiling called the Pompeian Room. Although the room was ornate and had an initial wow factor, it was an artistic mess. Sid Graumann's bombastic theaters had more decorative unity than the Pompeian Room. I'm sure my opposing view will not please the many fans of this popular space, but I grew anxious while sitting in the schizophrenic room with its erratic multi-themed decor. I know that the docents are volunteers and don't want to say anything negative, but they were the worst part of the tour.

I expected more grandeur. The tour guide obviously knew all her history about the place, and that's really respectable, BUT... the tour is BORING. You start at one of the side houses on the grounds and just sit around in one of the living rooms and listen to the tour guide ramble on for about an hour. Then you walk around the courtyard and pool area, nothing special about that. The pool was very underwhelming, and a group of people were setting up for a BBQ to be held around the pool area. The main house was good, but again lots of just standing and listening. The pompei room was nice, but small. No photos allowed!

As of 2018, they DO now allow photography inside the Mansion, as long as you don't use flash. They have 6 tour days per year, at 10am and 10:45am. Check their schedule on their website. Otherwise, having toured the house last weekend, I must say that the older Yelp reviews are still spot-on. You first sit through a long, not particularly interesting talk at the neighboring house, then a leisurely guided stroll around Chester Place and the Mount Saint Mary's campus. Only then do you get to enter the Doheny Mansion and see 5-6 of its rooms. The spectacular Pompeii Room, at the end, is almost worth the $20 ticket price. Otherwise, the rambling tour guides, poor ticket coordination, and general lack of "wow" factor make for a skippable experience. But if you've seen everything else in LA and are dying of curiosity, it is a pretty house.

Beautiful property. Such a wonderful piece of historical culture in this neck of the woods

Well this COULD have been really fun, but somehow the tour was SO BORING the hubby and I left early because we couldn't take it anymore. So, let me explain a little. I love history, I love architecture, and the hubby just likes to amuse me and come along to stuff like this. We've done many mansion tours before all over the country and typically really enjoy them. However, our docent, while very sweet, was incredibly disconbobulated and couldn't tell a good story if her life depended on it. She said she had been working there for 12 years but man, she needs to work on her talking points. Also, a lot of the people on the tour with us were super annoying. They just wouldn't stop asking the most idiotic questions. It was like being in a college class with that one middle aged (or older) student--going back to school for "fun" that would just bombard the professor with the stupidest, most annoying questions on earth and slow down the entire class. Basically out of the 20 people on our tour, about 14 of them were those "students (tourist)" who like to try to "teach'" the group themselves by asking questions just to try to show off how much they know about Los Angeles history or something. It is my guess that people like this are often who come to these tours so it would be nice if you didn't have to see the mansion with a group. The tour starts in another house and then looking at stuff on the lawn area. This took an ENTIRE HOUR!!! OMG, this could have been done easily in 20 or 30 minutes. This is when we left, just as we were about to FINALLY go in the mansion. Quite frankly, we just couldn't spend another hour listening to the worst lecture on LA history I've ever sat through (PS I was a history major so normally I LOVE history lectures and can find even the most mediocre lesson pretty fascinating). However, this my friends, was simply not worth my time. I would love if there was a self guided option or if there was a 1 hour tour offered of just the mansion.

The Pompeian Room is breathtaking! It's unbelievable that people actually lived here. The tour of the Mansion is only $25 for 2.5 hr tour! There is so much history within and surrounding the Mansion. This is a great place to visit. When I went on the tour there were a great mix of people, some older people, some young couples who looked awkward together (so probably their first date), and I was with my girl friends.