Most people who hike Deukmejian Wilderness Park treat the stone building by the parking lot as scenery. You lace up, glance at the two-story stonework catching morning light, and head for the trail. Maybe you use the restroom. Maybe you read a placard about local birds. Then you climb toward Dunsmore Canyon and forget the barn was ever there.
That building has a longer résumé than the trail system around it. It was a winery storage floor, then a family home rebuilt from a fire, then almost the foundation for a housing tract, before it became the visitor center you walk past today. The vineyard growing behind it is not landscaping. It is the last working piece of an industry that predates California wine country as most people picture it.
A Winemaker's Bet on Las Flores Canyon
In 1885, two French immigrants named Georges Le Mesnager and Pierre Durancette bought land in what was then called Las Flores Canyon, purchasing it from Dr. Benjamin B. Briggs, the man credited with founding La Crescenta. Los Angeles had a booming wine trade at the time, and Le Mesnager already ran a winery downtown, near Main and Mesnager Streets close to the Los Angeles River. The canyon acreage was meant to feed that operation. Thousands of vines went into the hillside, and grapes were hauled out by wagon for processing in the city.
Before Napa and Sonoma became the names everyone associates with California wine, this kind of canyon vineyard was closer to the industry's center of gravity than its edge.
Georges Le Mesnager was 64 years old when World War One broke out and he returned to France to enlist as a private. He came home with battle wounds and medals for valor, and went back to running his winery.
Fire, Flood, and a Rebuilt Roofline
Le Mesnager's son Louis started construction on the stone barn in 1905, finishing it around 1915. The ground floor held livestock and storage, including the grapes bound for the family's downtown winery. Prohibition ended the wine business in 1920, and the family shifted to table grapes and a non-alcoholic brandy drink to stay afloat.
Then, in 1933, fire tore through the property and burned everything except the stonework. The rains that followed brought flooding down the cleared hillside, doing more damage on top of the burn. The Le Mesnager family rebuilt anyway, giving the barn an arched roof in place of the original pitched one and adding living quarters upstairs. They moved in and stayed until 1960, which is part of why the barn survives today as a rare example of a two-story vernacular stone structure in this part of Los Angeles County.
The Almost-Subdivision
Here is the part of the story most hikers never hear. When the Le Mesnager family decided to move on, they offered the land first to the City of Glendale and then to the state. Both passed. The property was sold instead to a developer with plans for hundreds of hillside homes.
What happened next was not fast and it was not guaranteed. Local residents fought the development for years. The land eventually came back into public hands in 1986, when Glendale completed the purchase with funding tied to then-Governor George Deukmejian, whose name the park now carries. Twenty-six years passed between the sale to a developer and the day this became protected wilderness instead of a subdivision. The 709-acre park you hike today, spanning Dunsmore Canyon and Cook's Canyon, exists because that fight went the way it did.
What Still Grows Behind the Barn
The barn itself was converted into what is now the Stone Barn Nature Center, but the more surprising survival is outside it. A demonstration vineyard was replanted with historic varietals, including Red Flame, Alicante Bouchet, and Early Burgundy, echoing the grapes the Le Mesnager family originally grew on this hillside. The nonprofit Stone Barn Vineyard Conservancy now manages the vines, with local historian and winemaker Stuart Byles among those leading the effort to keep the planting alive and expanding it with grape varieties historic to the Crescenta Valley.
Walk the short Vineyard Trail loop behind the barn and you will cross a dry riverbed, pass under an oak, and if you look closely, spot the abandoned remains of an old swing set, a small trace of the family that once lived here.
Choosing Your Trail
Deukmejian offers a wide range of difficulty from the same trailhead, which is part of why it works for both a Sunday stroll and a serious training hike.
| Trail | Distance | Difficulty | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vineyard Trail loop | About 1 mile | Easy | The barn, the demonstration vineyard, an old riverbed crossing |
| Mummy Rock Trail | 1.1 miles round trip | Easy | A 30-foot rock formation shaped like a reclining mummy |
| Dunsmore Canyon / Crescenta View Trail | Several miles, varies by turnaround point | Moderate | Streamside woodland, then switchbacks with valley views |
| Mount Lukens summit route | 10.8 miles round trip | Hard | 2,870 feet of elevation gain and radio towers marking the highest point in the Angeles National Forest |
The Mount Lukens push typically takes six and a half to seven hours, so it is a plan-your-day hike, not something to start after a late breakfast.
Getting There Without Adding to the Parking Lot
Deukmejian's small lot fills up on clear weekend mornings, which is why the City of Glendale runs the Wander the Wilderness Bus, a free shuttle funded through Metro that operates every 30 minutes from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on weekends. It picks up from a rotating set of South Glendale parks, including Fremont Park, Pacific Park, and Maple Park, so check the current weekend's departure point on the City of Glendale's trails page before you head out.
One more thing worth knowing before you go: the city posted a black bear sighting on the Crescenta View Trail on May 15, 2026. It is a good reminder that this is still working wildland behind a residential neighborhood, not a manicured park. Stay on marked trails, keep dogs leashed, and give any wildlife the distance it is asking for.
The Part of the Park That Doesn't Show Up on a Map
None of this changes what the hike feels like on a Saturday morning. But it changes what you are looking at when you pass the barn on your way to the trailhead. That building is standing because a family rebuilt it twice, because two levels of government said no before a city finally said yes, and because residents who came before you decided a housing tract was not the right use for this canyon. The vineyard behind it is still bearing fruit from varietals planted to remember exactly that.
If you already know this park by heart, you now know one more layer of it. And if a place like La Crescenta-Montrose, with its foothill trails and century-old stories tucked behind a parking lot, is somewhere you are curious about from a homeownership angle, Kym De Lorenzo grew up learning these neighborhoods block by block and is always glad to talk through what a specific street or property is worth. Reach out anytime to request a free home valuation.
