Santa Monica · Masonry Services
Retaining Walls
Engineered retaining walls in block, poured concrete, and natural stone, with drainage built in behind every wall.
Retaining Walls · Santa Monica
Retaining Wall Construction in Santa Monica
We build retaining walls that hold back real weight. Most of our work sits on the canyon lots and graded hillsides between Santa Monica and the Palisades, where a yard only becomes usable once the slope is terraced and the water has somewhere to go. We build block retaining walls, poured concrete retaining walls, and full natural stone walls, and we design each one around the soil we actually find when we dig rather than a spec pulled off a shelf. Homeowners, property managers, and architects hire us for hillside retaining walls, garden terraces, driveway cuts, and the block walls that carry a fence or a planting bed. Every wall gets a proper footing, gravel backfill, and drain pipe.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a retaining wall cost per foot?
Budget $25 to $75 per square foot of wall face. Block sits at the bottom of that range, veneered block in the middle, full natural stone at the top. Height drives cost more than length does, because anything over four feet needs stamped engineering, a permit and a wider footing. On Palisades and Brentwood hillsides, the excavation and getting equipment to the back of the lot can rival the wall itself.
What type of retaining wall lasts the longest?
Poured concrete and mortared natural stone will both outlive their owners, comfortably 50 to 100 years. Reinforced block sits a little behind at 40 to 60. Timber is the short answer at 15 to 20 years, because the wood stays wet against the soil. In practice the drainage decides it: a well-drained block wall will outlast a stone wall with water trapped behind it every time.
Do retaining walls need drainage?
Every one of them. Saturated soil pushes far harder than dry soil, and a wall with no way to relieve that pressure leans, then cracks, then goes. We put gravel backfill, filter fabric and a perforated pipe behind every wall we build, and we grade the ground above so runoff sheds away instead of feeding the backfill. It appears on our estimates as part of the wall, never as an upgrade.
How tall can a retaining wall be without a permit?
In most of the Santa Monica area, walls up to 4 feet measured from the bottom of the footing can go in without a permit, provided they carry no surcharge. Anything taller, or anything holding back a driveway or structure, needs engineered drawings and a permit. We handle both.
Plenty more of what we get asked, grouped by trade, sits on the masonry questions page.
Planning masonry work in Santa Monica?
Tell us about the project and we will come out for a free on-site estimate.
Or call us now: (310) 356-9429