Venice may be facing a transition at this beloved neighborhood farm, as a long-planned hotel project moves forward. Plans have included bringing the farm back as part of the completed development, while a new opportunity is emerging to expand its impact for local kids at Westminster Elementary.
What’s happening to The Cook’s Garden
The Cook’s Garden has been a green heartbeat on Abbot Kinney for more than a decade, weaving together chefs, neighbors, rescued animals, and school kids in a tiny but mighty urban farm. After years of hearings and appeals, the long‑planned Venice Place boutique hotel and mixed‑use project on Abbot Kinney finally secured its approvals and is moving toward construction. That project will eventually replace the current site of The Cook’s Garden, meaning the sanctuary and its animals will need to be thoughtfully relocated.
For Venice residents it’s the culmination of more than a decade of organizing, public comment, and legal challenges over what kind of development belongs on Abbot Kinney. Many neighbors fought to preserve small scale, community serving spaces like The Cook’s Garden and neighbor, Ecole Claire Fontaine, amid concerns about traffic, loss of neighborhood character, and the steady erosion of places that actually serve locals. Now, with groundbreaking rescheduled for mid‑2027, there is a short window of time to turn that loss into a long‑term gain for kids and families across the street.
A kismet move: across the street to Westminster Elementary School
Right across from the current farm sits Westminster Avenue Elementary, a school that already has a thriving outdoor education program and beautiful gardens. Through Friends of Westminster and a dedicated crew of Master Gardeners and community volunteers, the WE Garden “seed‑to‑table” program has been teaching students how to grow food, care for plants, and understand where their meals come from. It is an outdoor classroom in the truest sense: hands in soil, eyes on pollinators, and kids learning science by living it.
That’s what makes this moment feel like kismet: Geri Miller, LA County/UC Davis Master Gardener and founder of The Cook’s Garden, is working with Westminster’s principal on a plan to relocate the animal sanctuary onto school grounds as a dedicated, rodent and predator‑proof sanctuary run. The proposed design includes a chicken coop, a duck habitat and pond, a bunny bungalow, a foster area for new rescues and wildfire evacuees, storage, and a partially covered structure that doubles as an outdoor life‑science classroom. These are the kinds of hands‑on experiences that turn “science class” into “I want to be a scientist.”
Sprawling, alive, and fully woven into the school day, Westminster’s gardens turn science into something kids can touch, grow, and experience in real time.
What this sanctuary will make possible for kids
Bringing the sanctuary across the street does more than save a beloved Venice space; it deepens Westminster’s existing garden program and makes animal care part of the school day.
Bringing the new sanctuary at Westminster Elementary School can mean:
Life science labs right on campus. Students can observe lifecycles, ecosystems, and animal behavior in real time instead of just reading about them.
A calm, sensory rich environment. Students can observe animals, connect with nature, and experience a quieter, grounding space during the school day.
A living lab for stewardship. Students can help care for the space, maintain habitats, refill water, harvest herbs, and learn responsibility through guided stewardship.
A neighborhood resource. Families can participate in volunteer days, after-school programs, and seasonal celebrations that connect school, home, and community.
Westminster is already a model for what a public school garden can be; adding a professionally designed sanctuary run raises the bar for what outdoor education looks like in LAUSD.
The funding gap and how you can help
To build this sanctuary, Geri and the community need to raise about $15k for materials and construction; so far, just over $5k has been raised, leaving a gap of roughly $10k. The delay in hotel groundbreaking to mid‑2027 buys precious time to close that gap, source materials, and organize volunteer labor, but it doesn’t change the reality: without funding, the animals will lose their home and Westminster will miss a once‑in‑a‑generation opportunity.
Rough sketch of the proposed interior layout of the chicken run
To keep the momentum going, The Cook’s Garden is launching weekly Wednesday after school farm fundraisers from 4:00–6:00 p.m. starting April 22, in partnership with Venice’s Only the Wild Ones. These afternoons are designed to feel like what Venice does best: low key, family friendly, and rooted in connection.
At these Bunny Hoppy Hour style events, families can:
Visit and feed the animals, from rescued bunnies like Freddie to the flock of chickens and ducks.
Enjoy wood‑fired pizza and beverages while kids play lawn games, color farm‑themed pages, and explore the garden.
Purchase small items from the farm gift table, with proceeds supporting construction of the sanctuary run at Westminster.
Ticketed entry helps cover costs and seed the building fund; adults must accompany children, and no dogs are allowed, to keep the space safe and calm for the animals.
If you can’t make it on Wednesdays, you can still help:
Donate directly to the sanctuary build fund
Sponsor materials: lumber, hardware cloth, roofing, storage units, or patio heaters for the outdoor classroom.
Organize a class, business, or block club fundraiser to “adopt” part of the build, like the bunny bungalow or butterfly lab area.
Volunteer your skills: construction, permitting, grant writing, fundraising, translation, or communications to support Geri and the Westminster team.
Let’s help make this happen!
Venice has always been a tension between speculation and rootedness, between projects built for investors and places tended by neighbors. The hotel project on Abbot Kinney is part of a larger pattern of high end development that has reshaped the boulevard over the last decade, replacing many small scale community uses with destination retail and hospitality. Yet spaces like The Cook’s Garden and now, potentially, the Westminster Animal Sanctuary, show another path: development that grows from care, education, and the daily lives of families who live here.
Helping fund this sanctuary is not just charity; it is civic design. It is choosing to turn an imposed change (the loss of the current Cook’s Garden site) into a permanent investment in public school kids, urban biodiversity, and community resilience. It is saying that Venice’s future should always include places where children learn that their city is alive and that they are capable of caring for it.
If you’re a Venice Rising reader, you already know how much we believe in that future. Join us in making sure the animals, and the lessons they teach, stay right here in the neighborhood, just across the street.
