Mulholland Drive is LA's most famous road — a 55-kilometre scenic highway running along the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains from the Hollywood Hills to the Pacific Coast near Malibu, providing views of the LA basin on one side and the San Fernando Valley on the other. The road was named after William Mulholland, the engineer who built the aqueduct that brought water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles and made the city's growth possible (and destroyed Owens Lake in the process, which is either visionary engineering or environmental catastrophe depending on whom you ask).
The most accessible stretch — from the Hollywood Freeway (101) west to Laurel Canyon — passes through the Hollywood Hills and provides the viewpoints that appear in every film set in LA. The overlook at the intersection of Mulholland and Cahuenga (known informally as the 'Hollywood Bowl Overlook') provides a nighttime panorama of the San Fernando Valley that stretches to the horizon — a carpet of orange-and-white lights that makes the Valley look like a galaxy.
David Lynch named his 2001 film after the road, and the dreamlike quality of driving Mulholland at night — the winding curves, the city lights flickering through the trees, the houses perched on ridgelines above vertiginous drops — captures the uncanny quality of LA that Lynch's work explores. The road is driveable in a normal car (the eastern section is paved; the western 'Mulholland dirt' section requires a 4x4), and the drive at sunset — when the Valley lights begin to appear as the last daylight fades from the ocean side — is one of LA's great experiences.
Verified Facts
Mulholland Drive runs approximately 55 kilometres along the mountain crest
Named after William Mulholland, engineer of the LA Aqueduct
David Lynch's 2001 film is named after the road
The western section ('Mulholland dirt') is unpaved
Get walking directions
Mulholland Drive, Brentwood, Los Angeles, 90049, United States
