Why you should visit Fairbanks Lawn.
Fairbanks Lawn, tucked within Hollywood Forever Cemetery, is one of Los Angeles’ most unexpected sanctuaries, a lush green expanse where the living gather to celebrate art, memory, and the surreal intersection of glamour and mortality. You should visit it because it distills the city’s essence: beauty born from impermanence.
Named after silent film star Douglas Fairbanks, whose nearby tomb overlooks the space, the lawn is both stage and shrine. Under a canopy of palms and sky, Angelenos unroll picnic blankets and watch films projected onto mausoleum walls, a tradition that has become an L.A. summer rite. There’s something hauntingly poetic about it: laughter and applause rising among gravestones, the glow of the screen flickering across marble angels. It’s romantic and eerie all at once, reminding you that this city never stops performing, even in death.
What you didn’t know about Fairbanks Lawn.
What you didn’t know about Fairbanks Lawn is that it has long served as the spiritual heart of Hollywood Forever, a space where the city’s contradictions coalesce into something profound.
While it’s known for its Cinespia movie nights, the lawn has also hosted concerts, cultural festivals, and memorials that reflect Los Angeles’ tapestry of lives and legacies. Beneath its manicured surface lies the resting place of entertainment royalty, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Jr., among others, yet its energy feels defiantly alive. The landscape design was modeled after early 20th-century European pleasure gardens, emphasizing harmony between architecture and nature. Even its acoustics were purposefully engineered, allowing live music to carry softly through the grounds. This isn’t accidental, it’s the continuation of Hollywood’s oldest story: to transform reality into something larger, more enduring, more cinematic.
How to fold Fairbanks Lawn into your trip.
To fold Fairbanks Lawn into your trip, attend a film screening or concert under the stars, when the cemetery transforms into a twilight amphitheater of memory and magic.
Arrive early to wander the grounds, where peacocks roam among ornate mausoleums and palm-lined pathways lead to hidden monuments. Bring a blanket, a bottle of wine, and a sense of reverence, this isn’t just entertainment, it’s communion. Few experiences encapsulate the city like this: the juxtaposition of glamour and decay, of joy set against eternity. As the opening credits roll and the skyline fades into night, you’ll feel the quiet heartbeat of Los Angeles, unending, seductive, and utterly alive.
Hear it from the Foresyte community.
This place is calm in a way LA rarely is. Palms swaying, light hitting old stones, you just sit there thinking wow this city’s got layers.
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