A guest asked us last spring for a villa with a tennis court in the Hollywood Hills. Reasonable request, impossible brief. A regulation court needs roughly 60 by 120 feet of dead-flat ground. The Hollywood Hills do not have 60 by 120 feet of dead-flat ground. They have ridges, retaining walls and houses that cantilever over nothing.
That is the whole story of sport at a Los Angeles villa. It is not a question of money — it is a question of geometry, and the geometry is decided before anyone picks a worktop. So here is the honest version: which houses on our register can genuinely do sport, which ones have a room with equipment in it, and the one amenity name that catches people out every single time.
The tennis court: why it is the rarest thing on the register
Thrush Eyrie in the Bird Streets has one, and it is the reason the house gets booked by groups who were not even thinking about tennis. A court on that ridge means someone bought and engineered a piece of flat, usable outdoor ground directly above the Sunset Strip — which is why the same house also comes up for daytime shoots more often than its neighbours do. The court sits alongside a basketball court, a sauna, a cold plunge, a private theatre, a cigar lounge and an elevator, in a five-bedroom, eight-bathroom house sleeping ten.
It also has a garage for eight cars plus four gated spaces, which on a narrow hillside street is close to unheard of. If your group is arriving in separate cars from separate flights and wants to play in the morning, this is the house. One honest note: ten guests across five bedrooms on a hillside ridge is still a hillside ridge. The views are the reason you are there and the drive is the part nobody mentions.
If tennis is genuinely the point of the trip rather than a nice-to-have, say so in the first line of your enquiry. We would rather tell you there is one answer than send you three houses that almost work.
"Basketball court" means one of two things
Full court and half court are both written as "basketball court" in a listing, and the difference decides whether four teenagers are playing a game or taking turns.
Lemmer Grange in Tarzana has a half-court — and for a group of twelve with teenagers in it, a half-court plus somewhere else to go is worth more than a full court on its own. The house carries a full indoor swimming pool and spa with its own adjoining pool lounge and bar, a gym, and a private movie theatre, across 14,479 square feet of gated estate with golf course views. Six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, sleeps twelve.
The caveat on Lemmer Grange is geography, and it is a real one. It is over the hill. If your week is dinner in West Hollywood every night, that drive will wear on you by Thursday. If your week is the house itself — swim, gym, court, theatre, repeat — it is one of the strongest houses we hold.
Thrush Eyrie's basketball court is the other one, and it sits next to the tennis court on the same engineered flat ground.
The gyms that are actually gyms
Most villa "gyms" in Los Angeles are a spare room with a Peloton and a rack of dumbbells. That is fine, and we will tell you when that is what it is. These are the ones where the room was built for the purpose.
Bel Air Peristyle is the biggest house on the register at roughly 20,000 square feet — nine king bedrooms, thirteen bathrooms, sleeping eighteen — and the fitness room sits alongside a sauna, a wine cellar, a private theatre and an elevator. At eighteen guests, four people can train while six watch a film and the rest are at the pool, without the group feeling split up. That is what scale actually buys.
Keswick Conservatory in West Los Angeles puts its exercise equipment alongside a home theatre, a game room, a wine room and a full basement lounge — five bedrooms, six and a half bathrooms, sleeping ten, newly built and fully gated, with an elevator running every level from basement to roof. It sits on flat ground near Cheviot Hills and Rancho Park, which means you can also run from the front door rather than negotiating a canyon on foot in the dark. There is a ping pong table too, which gets more use on a family booking than the weights do.
Summitridge Heights above Beverly Hills pairs its fitness room with a sauna, an infinity-edge pool, a thirteen-seat theatre and a walk-in refrigerator that matters if you are catering rather than cooking. Six bedrooms, nine bathrooms, sleeps twelve, on its own gated promontory. Straight note: three of the six bedroom configurations are confirmed on enquiry rather than published, so we confirm them for your dates instead of guessing on a web page.
Thrasher Aerie, also in the Bird Streets, has a gym alongside an infinity-edge pool, a private theatre, a glass-enclosed wine cellar and a designer bar — five bedrooms, nine bathrooms, sleeping ten.
Coldwater Sycamore House in Studio City is the quiet one on this list and often the right one. A Gerard Colcord estate reimagined by Julia Dempster, sleeping ten, with a gym, a dedicated office and a back house, ten minutes from Universal and the Warner Bros. lot. For a working trip where someone needs to train at six and be on a call at eight, it beats three of the houses above. Its limit is parking: a two-car garage and a driveway. Ten guests in five hire cars is the wrong plan for it.
Mulholland Ridge has a gym too, plus a theatre, an LED-lit bar and a wine cellar across more than 10,000 square feet — for a house that sleeps only ten. Picture the five levels honestly, though. The gym is rarely on the floor you happen to be standing on.
Sauna, cold plunge and the part people actually use
In our experience the recovery rooms get more use across a week than the gyms do. Thrush Eyrie is the one house that pairs a sauna with a cold plunge, which is the combination people ask for by name now. Summitridge Heights and Bel Air Peristyle both have saunas. Curson Atelier in the Fairfax district puts a sauna and a home theatre below the entertaining floor, in a five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom house sleeping ten — and the rooftop has a clear line to the Hollywood Sign plus enough around it that you can walk out of the door for coffee rather than booking a car.
If swimming is the sport, read the listing twice
Two traps here, and we would rather you heard both from us.
The first: an outdoor pool in January is decorative. If you are training in water rather than lounging in it, and your dates are in winter, the indoor pool at Lemmer Grange is a different proposition entirely — it is the only one on the register, and the water works in any weather, at any hour.
The second, and it catches people every year: Grimes Olive House in Encino has a pool table, not a swimming pool. Those are not the same amenity. Everything else about the house suits a large group — seven bedrooms with an en-suite in every one of them, sleeping fourteen, two living areas, a four-car garage, a large driveway and free street parking on top of it. But if anyone in your group plans to swim, it is the wrong house, and we say so before you ask rather than after you arrive.
If the ocean is the pool, Broad Beach Dunehouse sits directly on the sand at the quieter, wider western end of Malibu — six king en-suite bedrooms, eight bathrooms, sleeping twelve. Broad Beach is the stretch where a morning run is actually a morning run rather than a slalom through other people's umbrellas. September and October are the best months out there: warm water, clear mornings, no crowds. May and June can be grey until early afternoon.
Flat ground is the amenity nobody lists
Yoga, a Pilates mat, a boot-camp trainer coming to the house, children kicking a ball — none of that needs a court. It needs level, private outdoor ground, and in the hills that is scarcer than a gym. Acreage is the best proxy. Ellison Ridgehouse sits on just over an acre at the head of a Beverly Hills cul-de-sac, and Electra Overlook holds two-thirds of an acre on Mt. Olympus. Land is what makes outdoor space usable for anything other than standing on it.
The bathroom problem nobody connects to the gym
Here is the line that gets left out of every amenity list: a gym is only as good as the shower queue behind it. Twelve people, a morning workout and a 10am departure is a bathroom calculation, not a fitness one.
Alta Vista Terrace in Beverly Grove sleeps twelve and is genuine value per head in central Los Angeles. It also has three and a half bathrooms. For a group of friends splitting a rate it is often the right trade and we book it happily — but if six of you intend to train every morning, plan the rota before you book, or pick a house with one bathroom per bedroom. Grimes Olive House, Bel Air Peristyle and Summitridge Heights all clear that bar comfortably.
Four things to tell us
Which sport, and is it the point of the trip or a bonus? Tennis narrows the register to one answer. A gym does not.
How many people are actually training? One person at six in the morning and six people at eight are different houses.
Are you bringing a trainer? Anyone attending who is not staying on the booking is a separate conversation, and it needs written approval before they arrive — not a text message on the day.
Your dates. Because an outdoor pool in December is not really a pool.
Rates and how to book
We do not publish nightly numbers for any of these houses. They price by season, length of stay, headcount and staffing, and the Strip and hillside houses move sharply around awards season. Rates are on request, and you get the real figure the same day — usually within two hours.
Tell us the group, the dates and what people actually intend to do with their mornings. We will come back with three matched houses and the honest drawbacks of each. Send us your dates or call (323) 431-7539, staffed 7am to 11pm Pacific, seven days.