Located at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains, Brentwood is bounded by the San Diego Freeway on the east, Wilshire Boulevard on the south, the Santa Monica city limits on the southwest, the border of Topanga State Park on the west and Mulholland Drive along the ridgeline of the mountains on the north.
Nearby neighborhoods and cities include Pacific Palisades on the west, Santa Monica on the southwest, West Los Angeles on the south, Sawtelle on the southeast, Westwood on the east, Bel-Air on the northeast and Encino on the north.
Popular recreational spots include the Brentwood Country Mart, an early farmer's market complex built in 1947 (and recently remodeled and expanded); the Brentwood Village, a small shopping district near the intersection of Sunset and Barrington; and more recently, Brentwood Green, a "village commons" created from the playground at Brentwood Science Magnet Elementary School.
There is also a tented farmer's market held each Sunday on a strip of Gretna Green Way between Brentwood Science Magnet and the Brentwood Country Club. The 2.7-mile-long (4.3 km) boundary of the private Brentwood Country Club is a popular local jogging route. The internationally renowned Getty Museum is located in the hills high above Brentwood, near the 405 freeway and the Sepulveda Pass.
Local public parks are Crestwood Hills Park and Barrington Recreation Center, the latter of which features a community center, tennis courts, soccer fields, baseball diamonds and a dog park. Fire roads in the Santa Monica Mountains, good for mountain biking and hiking, can be accessed at the top of Sullivan Canyon and Westridge.
In addition to Brentwood Science Magnet Elementary School (which only zones some residents for Kindergarten), the area is served by Kenter Canyon Elementary School, Brockton Avenue Elementary School, and Pacific Palisades Elementary School (some areas are zoned jointly to Kenter Canyon and Pacific Palisades), all of which are part of Los Angeles Unified School District.
Locals attending public school usually go to Paul Revere Charter Middle School, Brentwood's zoned middle school. The local public high schools are University High School (named for nearby UCLA, formerly Warren G. Harding High and planned as Sawtelle High School, see Sawtelle), just outside the neighborhood's boundaries in West Los Angeles and often thought to be located in Brentwood, and Palisades Charter High School, in the nearby neighborhood of Pacific Palisades.
Brentwood is also home to several private schools, including Brentwood School, St. Martin of Tours Catholic School, and the Archer School for Girls, located in what was once the historic Eastern Star Home. The old Eastern Star Home can be seen as the setting of the "Mar Vista Rest Home" in the movie Chinatown (1974).
