Drive Palos Verdes Drive North past the intersection with Empty Saddle Lane and you will see a fence line, some mature trees, and not much else. No sign advertises what sits behind it: nearly 13 acres of groomed riding grounds, arenas, and a clubhouse that has belonged to the same members since 1935. The Empty Saddle Club is one of the oldest institutions in Rolling Hills Estates, and for 364 days of the year, it is closed to anyone who does not hold a membership.

The 365th day is this Saturday.

A Private Club That Opens Once a Year

On September 19, 2026, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the City of Rolling Hills Estates will hold its 69th Annual City Celebration on the Empty Saddle Club grounds. This is not a rental agreement or a one-off favor. The club has hosted the city's birthday party for decades, opening its acreage to residents who otherwise have no reason to walk past the gate.

What is actually on offer reads like a working ranch day rather than a city-hall function: pony sweeps, horse stick races, guided horse rides, a rock wall, petting zoos, and hay rides, with food available from vendors on-site. The event raises money for the Pepper Tree Foundation, the nonprofit that funds tree planting, bench maintenance, and general upkeep of the city's parks and open spaces. Put plainly, the one day residents get access to a private club is also the one day that access pays for the public spaces they use the other 364.

It is worth sitting with what the club actually is before the gates open. Founded in 1935 as a men's equestrian club, Empty Saddle Club is now member-owned and dedicated to Western riding, cattle sorting, and horsemanship, a working institution rather than a museum piece. The club's own history runs alongside the city's incorporation, which turns 69 this year. Neither one is older than the other by much. Rolling Hills Estates was built on land where horses were already the point.

Two Horse Events, Two Entirely Different Cultures

If you want to understand how much range that shared history covers, look at what happened two weeks before the City Celebration, at a different piece of city-owned ground.

From September 4 through 6, Ernie Howlett Park hosted the 68th Annual Portuguese Bend National Horse Show, an A-rated event that draws serious competitive riders rather than curious residents. The show's schedule included the Pacific Coast Horse Association's Horsemanship Medal Finals for riders 14 and under and for riders 18 to 34, along with the PCHA Victor Hugo Vidal Adult Horsemanship Class for riders 35 and over. The jumper card carried real money on the line: a $10,000 Harman Family Jr-A/O Jumper Classic, a $15,000 Seahorse Open Jumper Classic, and three separate $2,500 Hunt & Go Derbies. Trainers whose riders performed well were recognized with Winning Trainer Awards, a detail that tells you this show is judged as much on coaching as on riding.

That is a fundamentally different event from a hayride and a petting zoo, and the distance between them says something about the city itself. Ernie Howlett Park, at 25851 Hawthorne Boulevard, is Rolling Hills Estates' primary public recreational facility. It carries an equestrian center serious enough to host a 68-year-old national show, plus eight public tennis courts with their own grandstand for tournament spectators. Empty Saddle Club, a few minutes away, is a private club whose horsemanship is measured by membership and tradition rather than prize money. One September week gave the city a competitive show with national standing. The next gave it a single afternoon where anyone with no equestrian background at all could sit on a pony inside a gate that is usually locked.

Most cities have a horse show or a heritage festival. Few have both running back to back, on different sides of the same civic identity, in the same two-week stretch.

The Canyon Trail Stayed Open Through Construction

Not every September fixture in Rolling Hills Estates is an event with a start and end time. The George F Canyon Nature Center, a 51-acre preserve jointly managed by the city and the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, has spent most of 2026 mid-construction. The old nature center building, worn down after decades of use, closed so that a new one could go up in its place. City construction fencing went in on January 26, 2026, and the project broke ground formally on May 22, with a roughly one-year build timeline for a new 3,300-square-foot facility that will include solar panels, native landscaping, and EV charging when it opens.

What did not close is the canyon itself. The Stein-Hale Nature Trail, the one-mile out-and-back path that starts behind the old center, has remained open throughout construction, along with its benches, interpretive signage, and viewing decks over the canyon floor. The Conservancy has kept its programming running too, including free guided nature walks on the first Saturday of every month at 10:30 a.m. This September's walk happened on the 5th. The next one lands October 3.

The distinction matters more than it sounds. A nature center closing for a year could easily have meant the canyon itself going dark, parking lot roped off, trail access suspended until the ribbon cutting. Instead the city and the Conservancy split the difference: building closed, land open, programming intact. For a preserve that has drawn hikers since 1995, that continuity is the actual story, not the eventual reopening date.

Wednesday Mornings at Scriba Family Center

Not everything worth knowing about a September in Rolling Hills Estates involves a horse or a trail. The Peninsula Seniors' Bohannon Lecture Series has been running its usual Wednesday morning slot at the Scriba Family Center on Deep Valley Drive, with talks that swing from the practical to the personal. On September 2, Ransford Mollison, a Medicare professional, spoke on heart-healthy eating. On September 9, Sandy Swafford shared stories from growing up in the Philippines and serving with the Navy in Southeast Asia, including missions aboard the Battleship Iowa during World War II. This Wednesday, September 16, the topic turns to gardening, with a talk on how native plants support the local ecosystem.

It is a small, recurring thing, easy to miss if you are not already looking for it. But it is exactly the kind of fixture that tells you what a place actually runs on day to day, long after the horse show trailers have left the park.

What September Adds Up To

None of these four threads, the club that opens once a year, the horse show that just left town, the trail that stayed open through construction, the lecture series that keeps its Wednesday slot, would make headlines on their own. Together they describe a city that treats its calendar the way it treats its land: carefully divided between what is public, what is private, and what gets shared exactly once. Rolling Hills Estates does not have one identity. It has a working ranch that competes nationally, a private club that opens its gates for six hours a year, and a canyon that never really closed at all.

If you are weighing a move to the Palos Verdes Peninsula, or you already call Rolling Hills Estates home and want a market read grounded in the same kind of specific, on-the-ground knowledge, Suzanne Dyer has spent more than three decades watching this city's calendar and its market move together. Reach out for a confidential conversation whenever the timing is right for you.