Every September for as long as most residents can remember, the Empty Saddle Club opens its gates for one Saturday of hayrides, pony sweeps and a stick horse rodeo that somehow never gets old. This year marks the 69th time the city has done this, on Saturday, September 19, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at 39 Empty Saddle Lane. Entry is free. The all-day activities wristband, the one that gets you into the petting zoo, the pony rides, the guided horse rides, the rock wall and face painting, runs $15 if you buy it online ahead of time and $20 if you wait until you're standing at the gate.
Most people who go treat that wristband the way they'd treat a carnival ticket. Pay it, wear it, forget it. But the fundraising from this event, along with the club's other signature events, goes to the Pepper Tree Foundation, and the Foundation's money is not sitting in a savings account waiting for a rainy day. Right now, a few minutes down Palos Verdes Drive East, it's holding up a building.
What the Foundation is actually building
The Pepper Tree Foundation has existed since 1982, run in an unusual way: the city's own council members sit as its board of directors, with the mayor serving as chair. That structure means the money raised at events like this one doesn't pass through a separate nonprofit with its own agenda. It goes directly into decisions the council is already making about the city's parks and open space.
For most of its history, that meant trees, benches, picnic tables, the kind of quiet maintenance that keeps a place looking cared for without anyone noticing the work. The current project is bigger than that. The George F Canyon Nature Center, tucked into the 51-acre preserve at 27305 Palos Verdes Drive East, is being rebuilt from the ground up. The existing facility is a modest 1,450 square feet. The replacement will be roughly 3,290 square feet, with solar panels, energy-efficient systems, native landscaping and electric vehicle charging built in from the start.
Groundbreaking happened in late March 2026, with Mayor Frank Zerunyan, Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy Executive Director Adrienne Mohan, and state and county officials on hand. A city construction update from June 24 noted that structural framing had become visible across the site, meaning that if you've driven past the canyon this summer, you've likely already watched the frame of this building take shape without realizing what it was.
The total cost sits at about $6.15 million. That money is not coming from one place. A $1.2 million grant from the California Department of Parks and Recreation, secured with help from state Senator Ben Allen, covers a significant piece. Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn's office contributed $500,000. The Rivers and Mountains Conservancy added $424,200. The city layered in roughly $1.2 million of its own Park Facilities Fees, plus Measure W funds earmarked for stormwater work, and the Land Conservancy is contributing toward the educational elements and furnishings inside.
That is a lot of institutional money already in place. It also means the Pepper Tree Foundation's job at this point isn't to fund the whole building. It's to close the remaining gap and fund what comes after, the parts of the vision that don't fit neatly into a state grant line item. Mayor Zerunyan put it plainly at the groundbreaking, describing the project as being about more than a facility, calling it an investment in the land itself and in what future generations will be able to learn there. Adrienne Mohan echoed that from the Conservancy's side, noting the center has always been where people come to understand the natural world and that this new building lets that mission grow.
So when you clip on a $15 wristband this Saturday, you're not funding an abstraction. You're funding the gap between a state grant and a finished building you can already see taking shape from the road.
The trail stays open while the center doesn't
If you hike George F Canyon regularly, here's the part that matters for your Saturday mornings between now and whenever the new building opens. The Stein-Hale Nature Trail itself remains open, and the Conservancy has kept its monthly guided nature walk running on the first Saturday of each month at 10:30 a.m. What's closed is the nature center building and its parking lot. Street parking near the trailhead still works, and the canyon access hasn't gone anywhere. The construction fencing that went up in late January is around the building footprint, not the trail.
A different way to spend the same Saturday morning
If horses and hay rides aren't your family's thing, or if you'd rather spend Saturday morning doing something with your hands, there's a second option happening at the exact same time across town. Los Serenos de Point Vicente is running its Coastal Cleanup Day from Founders Park to Ocean Trails Reserve, from 9 a.m. to noon, the same September 19 morning as the City Celebration.
It's worth naming both options rather than treating the City Celebration as the only thing on the calendar, because that's a more honest picture of what a Saturday in this city actually looks like. Some residents will spend the morning at a beach cleanup and swing by the Empty Saddle Club in the afternoon for a barbecue lunch from the food vendors. Others will do the reverse. Neither choice is more local than the other. Both are, in their own way, small contributions to the same idea, that the Peninsula's open space doesn't maintain itself and someone has to show up for it.
Why it's happening at a working cattle club
One detail that gets lost in the pony rides and face painting is where this event actually takes place. The Empty Saddle Club isn't a rented event space. It's a working equestrian and cattle-sorting club founded in 1935, sitting on nearly 13 acres of member-owned land a few miles from the Pacific. Members there compete in timed team events like cattle sorting throughout the year, and the club has hosted its own Cowboy Days celebration since 1992. Membership requires horse ownership and a real commitment to the grounds.
That the city's biggest annual community event happens inside a working ranch, in a city that also has an active bridle trail network and an equestrian center at Ernie Howlett Park, says something about what Rolling Hills Estates has chosen to protect as it grew up around it. The Pepper Tree Foundation's other signature fundraiser, the Hills Are Alive Race, leans on that same infrastructure. Its 44th running took place this past May, starting and finishing at Ernie Howlett Park and sending runners and walkers along the same soft-packed bridle trails that wind through the city.
If you're going
A few practical notes worth knowing before Saturday:
- Entry to the City Celebration is free. The wristband is only required for the petting zoo, pony rides, guided horse rides, rock wall and face painting.
- Hay rides, the corn pits, the magic show, the reptile show, equestrian competitions, picnic games and the stick horse rodeo are all free regardless of wristband.
- Individual activity tickets aren't sold at the gate, so if your family plans to do more than one wristband activity, buying online ahead of time saves both money and a line.
- Parents and guardians supervising kids in the petting zoo or on pony rides don't need their own wristband.
- If you're headed to George F Canyon afterward or that weekend, plan on street parking near the trailhead rather than the center's lot, which remains closed during construction.
None of this changes what the day is, which is a genuinely old-fashioned, low-key community festival that has run for 69 years without needing much reinvention. But knowing where the money goes changes how it feels to hand over $15 at the gate. You're not just buying an afternoon of pony rides for your kids. You're helping close the gap on a building the city, the state, the county and the Land Conservancy have all already bet on, and one you can watch rise, board by board, the next time you drive past the canyon.
If you're weighing a move to Rolling Hills Estates, or trying to understand how a city this size funds the things that make it feel like home, Justin Drury has spent years watching these projects come together from the ground up. Reach out anytime to talk through what life here actually looks like, season by season.
