UCLA La Kretz Garden Pavilion & Event Venues - Los Angeles, California

Laurel Woodley

Lovely well tended 7.5 acre garden with an extensive collection of plants from around the world. Most plants have easy to read labels. Entrance is free.

Monica Banks

La Kretz Garden Pavilion was a beautiful space to host our event. We ended up reserving one of the venue rooms, the kitchen as well as the outside patio. We are grateful for Ignacio as he was amazing to work with. He was prompt about answering all of our questions and ensuring we had everything we needed for our guests. Having access to the botanical gardens was a definite plus! We would definitely book here again.

UCLA Luskin Department of Public Policy

Highly recommend this venue for any of your events or celebrations! Ignacio was very accommodating an help with his event insight, and the space was absolutely gorgeous! We loved how much we were able to adapt and modify the venue to our event's liking and format, and we would definitely book with them again.

Elda Pineda

The Space:
We rented the La Kretz room 101 space for a day for a staff retreat for 16 people. The space is clean (both visually and sanitarily), and being able to fully open the sliding glass door was a COVID safety plus. The tables are on rollers, so it was easy to reconfigure the room when had activities that required more open space. It's a bright, inviting space.

Equipment:
It's fully equipped with a screen and projector (and they had all the adapters needed. All I had to do was plug in my laptop and it all worked, which pretty much never happens, ever). They also had a large screen smart TV with a built in camera that we used to Zoom in our virtual colleagues. Wifi was strong and fast. All the tech was one of the deciding factors in renting the space since it was really nice not to have to lug all of our own equipment to the site.

The Process:
Ignacio was our super helpful reservation representative and he was pleasant to work with and very knowledgable. He took me on a full walk-through of the space before we booked so I could get a sense of how things would be on the day of. On the day of the retreat, he got to the venue earlier than our set up team and put up sandwich board signs to direct our party to the venue, which I really appreciated. An events staff person is at their office and were easy to find if I needed something. (Thanks, Ignacio!)

Catering and Parking
We prearranged a coupon code for parking so that our staff wouldn't have to shell out their own cash and get reimbursed. We chose ASUCLA for the catering, which was easy to arrange and had the advantage of being more familiar with the space than an outside vendor. They set it all up for us, with tablecloths and baskets, etc. and when one of the tea dispensers didn't work, they sent someone out to replace it within 10 minutes. The broke it all down and took it away when our meeting concluded.

The Verdict:
I've been renting spaces all over Los Angeles for events, meetings and retreats for 15+ years and this was by far the smoothest event rental experience I've ever had. Very professional from start to finish and our staff all commented on how much they loved the space and being able to walk the grounds of the Botanical Garden during lunch. It felt very retreat-like, peaceful and easy and everyone was able to relax and focus on the tasks at hand.

Renee Houle Catanzano

This venue was just perfect for our Founder's farewell celebration. So easy to work with, within our nonprofit budget, and just beautiful. Major kudos to Ignacio Contreras for his exceptional stewardship! I will be recommending this venue to all my colleagues.

Nicole

This is one of my favorite discussion locations, because it's easy to navigate and is near the botanical gardens, so if you show up early or have time after discussion, there's a really chill place to hang out. The glass doors also make for great natural lighting.

For visitors to the botanical garden, there's a map of different features in the botanical garden, and a poster about the garden's history. There's also English and Spanish brochures and maps to bring along.

There's also restrooms in the back, including a gender neutral bathroom and water bottle filling station.

Sheena Santamaria

Ignacio did a wonderful job of helping my partner and I coordinate our elopement ceremony at the Nest. I highly recommend this venue should you be looking for a space for your upcoming nuptials, as the entire team is incredibly helpful.

Melanie Bonilla

Beautiful and convenient location to host events! Will use it again in the future. The staff are professional and kind!