Address: 2800 N. Beachwood Drive - Park on Beachwood; the stairs are just a block from the Beachwood Market and Cafe (2695 N. Beachwood Drive)
Description: Starting point for Beachwood Canyon Loop (from Secret Stairs LA); This feels like an enchanted Hollywood set and is guaranteed to get your prince/princess mojo rising (along with your heart rate!)
How many steps? 143 (out of 861 for the whole walk)
If you love Hollywood history like I do, AND you're looking for a tough butt-kicking workout, then you are in the right place! This is the first set of stairs on a loop that will take you through Upper Beachwood, which is where a lot of legendary stars lived -- Bela Lugosi, Humphrey Bogart, and Bugsy Siegel, to name a few. (Bugsy, in case you didn't know, was a gangster and not a movie star, but then again, there have been so many movies about him! Warren Beatty, Harvey Keitel, Armand Assante, and Richard Grieco, who was in the original TV show 21 Jump Street, have all played him.) The spirits will certainly move you... and trust me, you'll need the motivation as you do the Beachwood Canyon loop 'o cardio!
This first set of stairs goes up, and man are they steep! You can distract yourself by admiring how much the beautiful steps look like cobblestones -- this works best if you ever fantasized about being a Disney princess. (I have, so it works for me!) Turns out they are granite and cut from the same rock as the Hollywood gates, so that's worth knowing. I couldn't find out much about the beautiful wrought iron railings, except the fact that by the end I was using them to pull myself up the last few stairs. Thank goodness it's so shaded because it cooled me off AND kept any nosy neighbors from watching me. (Yes, the houses are right on top of the steps on this one! Which isn't so bad because the architecture can be fun to look at, too.)
If you are doing this set of stairs with the others in the area, then you'll find the next set on Westshire. All you have to do once you finish the Lower Beachwood stairs is take a right, climb a little bit more, and then stay right to follow Westshire. It'll loop down hill a bit; when you get to 2748 Westshire you'll see the next set of stairs.
