Drive north on Beverly Glen toward Mulholland on any clear afternoon and you'll catch it below you: a flat sheet of water tucked into the hillside, ringed by eucalyptus, looking exactly like a place a person could walk. Keep driving past the orange Caltrans signage that's gone up along Sepulveda this month, and you'll notice something else. Two things in Bel-Air look like they just changed. Only one of them actually did.
Starting tomorrow, September 21, Caltrans begins a new round of overnight lane and ramp closures through the Sepulveda Pass as part of the ongoing I-405 pavement rehabilitation project between Van Nuys and Westwood. The reservoir, meanwhile, has looked exactly this walkable for decades and has never once been open. Sorting out which of these is worth adjusting your week around, and which one residents have simply misread for years, is the actual local knowledge worth having right now.
The Closures, Read Correctly
The work beginning this week is overnight, weeknight paving and K-rail installation, running roughly 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Monday through Friday. Up to four lanes of northbound I-405 close between Wilshire Boulevard and Skirball Center Drive, along with the Getty Center Drive off- and on-ramps. Southbound, up to four lanes close between the 101 and Skirball, with the Sepulveda Boulevard and Ventura Boulevard ramps shut as well.
That's separate from the project's other closure type, the extended weekend lane reduction, which happens roughly every two weeks and runs from about 10 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. During those windows the freeway typically drops to two or three lanes rather than closing outright, and Caltrans has said there will be about 25 of them before the $143.7 million project wraps.
| Closure type | When | What closes |
|---|---|---|
| Weeknight paving closures | 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., Mon–Fri, beginning Sept. 21 | Up to 4 lanes each direction between Wilshire/101 and Skirball Center Drive; Getty Center, Sepulveda, and Ventura ramps |
| Extended weekend closures | About every 2 weeks, Fri 10 p.m. to Mon 5 a.m. | I-405 reduced to 2–3 lanes through the Pass (not a full shutdown) |
Both closure types come with a reduced 55 mph speed limit through the work zone while paving continues. Neither one touches the freeway during a normal workday.
What Actually Changes If You're Out Past Nine
The people who feel this are the ones driving home after dark, not the ones commuting through it during the day. Caltrans has published two specific workarounds for residents on the Bel-Air side of the Pass. Heading north after the Sepulveda ramp closes, the detour is to continue on Sepulveda Boulevard and pick up the on-ramp to northbound I-405 from Skirball Center Drive. Heading south, it's Sepulveda to Church Lane, then the Sunset Boulevard on-ramp to southbound I-405.
Neither route adds much distance. What it adds is unpredictability, since Caltrans' own goal for these closures is to keep delays under 15 minutes on weeknights and under 30 during the extended weekend work, which means most nights it's a minor detour and some nights it isn't. If you're leaving a dinner in Sherman Oaks or picking someone up from Van Nuys after 9 p.m. this fall, build in the extra ten minutes. If you're leaving before then, you likely won't notice the project at all.
The Getty's New Fall Shows Aren't Actually Competing With the Closures
This matters because the timing looks worse than it is. The Getty Center opened a photography exhibition on September 1 tracing Mexico's evolving visual culture across a century of work by thirteen photographers, running through January 3. A second exhibition opened September 15 and runs through March 14, 2027. Both landed in the same month Caltrans started tightening the ramp that leads straight to the museum's front door, which is the kind of coincidence that makes a resident assume the two are connected.
They aren't, at least not for anyone visiting during the day. The construction closures are entirely overnight. A weekday trip to see either show, arriving and leaving before evening, never touches the closure window at all. The only version of this that actually collides is an evening event at the museum that lets out into the 9 p.m. start of the closures, in which case the Sepulveda-to-Skirball routing above is the one to know before you go, not after you're stuck in it.
The Reservoir Still Isn't a Trail, Closures or Not
The other assumption worth correcting has nothing to do with construction. Stone Canyon Reservoir and its smaller companion, Upper Stone Canyon Reservoir, sit in the hills north of Beverly Glen, owned and operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Together they supply drinking water to roughly 400,000 people across Pacific Palisades, the Santa Monica Mountains, and West Los Angeles. A historical marker placed at the site by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy describes the surrounding watershed plainly: a large protected area that is not open to public access, and hasn't been for as long as most current residents have lived here.
That's true whether or not a single lane on the 405 is closed. The gate at the property line predates this year's paving project by decades, and it isn't part of it.
What is open, and has been the whole time, sits a short drive away on the south side of Mulholland Drive. The Stone Canyon Overlook, managed by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, offers ample parking and a short, ADA-accessible path with a real view of the reservoir below, along with the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Catalina Island on a clear day. The overlook carries a dedication to Anton Calleia, who served on the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy from 1980 to 1993 under an appointment by Mayor Tom Bradley. It's the honest answer for anyone who wants to actually see the water rather than assume they can walk around it.
Where Bel-Air Actually Walks This Fall
Beyond the overlook, the neighborhood's real walking options are a short list of named trailheads rather than the loop people picture when they look down from Mulholland:
- Westridge-Canyonback Wilderness Park, one of the most consistently listed hiking spots for the area
- Mandeville Canyon Fire Road, a fire road route on the Brentwood-adjacent side of the hills
- Caballero Canyon Trail, another regularly cited option in the same stretch of the Santa Monica Mountains
- Getty View Trailhead, sitting near the museum grounds
- Deervale-Stone Canyon Park, a smaller, quieter option in the immediate area
None of these require a detour around freeway construction, and none of them are the reservoir. They're simply the actual menu, as opposed to the one implied by a view from the road.
The Through Line
Put the freeway and the reservoir side by side and the pattern in Bel-Air this fall becomes clear. The thing that looks like the season's biggest disruption, a construction project tightening ramps a resident uses several times a week, only really touches the hours after dark. The thing that's looked accessible for years, a body of water visible from half the streets in the neighborhood, has never been open at all and isn't waiting on a paving crew to become so. Knowing which is which is the difference between rearranging your evening and rearranging nothing.
That kind of distinction, between what's temporarily different and what's permanently true about a place, is the same instinct that matters when you're evaluating a property here rather than just driving past one. Jennifer Purdue Property Group works this stretch of Los Angeles year-round, from the East Gate to the ridge above Stone Canyon, and we're always glad to talk through what's actually changing in the neighborhood, construction schedules included. If you'd like to talk specifics about Bel-Air, book an appointment and we'll walk through it together.
