The campus Layton
The 47-acre park where city hall, a museum, an indoor wave pool and an amphitheater share one address
Layton Commons Park, the civic campus behind Layton City Hall
Layton Commons Park is a 47-acre campus at 437 North Wasatch Drive, and city hall stands inside it. On the same grounds are the free Heritage Museum of Layton, the Ed Kenley Amphitheater, the Layton Surf 'n Swim indoor wave pool, the Davis Arts Council box office, a duck pond, a Vietnam Memorial Wall, and picnic shelters spread across the lawns. It is free to walk, open year round, and dogs are not allowed.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
Layton Commons Park is the city's civic campus, 47 acres at 437 North Wasatch Drive with Layton City Hall standing inside it. On the same grounds you will find the free Heritage Museum of Layton, the Ed Kenley Amphitheater, the Layton Surf 'n Swim indoor wave pool, the Davis Arts Council box office, a duck pond on the south side, a Vietnam Memorial Wall, two Little League fields, two playgrounds and fifteen picnic shelters. It is free to walk and open year round. The one rule to know before you drive over: dogs are not allowed on this park. Plan a couple of hours to see the whole campus, or half an hour for a loop around the pond.
What is on the campus
One address, and half a dozen things to do at it
The easiest way to picture Layton Commons Park is not as a park with a few buildings on it, but as one address with several front doors. Layton City Hall sits at 437 North Wasatch Drive, in the middle of the grounds rather than across the street from them, and the rest of the campus fans out from there. Most cities of Layton's size spread the museum, the pool, the concert venue and the council chamber across town. Layton put them all on land it already owned, which is why one drive here can cover a permit question, a free museum, a swim and a picnic.
The Heritage Museum of Layton is at 403 North Wasatch, next door and just south of city hall, and admission is free. It holds the Joseph Hill Cabin, a gun collection, a train display and a children's corner, and the staff give free cabin tours on request, which is the part of a visit here people tend to remember. It is closed on Sundays, and its hours shift from year to year, so confirm the day before you go.
Layton Surf 'n Swim is a block north at 465 North Wasatch, a city-run indoor wave pool with eight wave patterns, a lap area and two racquetball courts. Admission is a single low figure and everyone who comes through the door pays whether they swim or not; the price and the wave schedule change twice a year, so they are priced and dated on the county family weekends page rather than here.
The Ed Kenley Amphitheater, an open-air stage built in 1995 seating roughly 1,700, carries the Davis Arts Council's summer concert season, and the council's own history names Chicago, The Doobie Brothers, Foreigner, Styx, Olivia Newton-John, The Beach Boys and REO Speedwagon among the acts that have played it. The council's office and box office sit in a suite of the city hall building itself. And the duck pond on the south side, opposite the playground, is the thing most photographs of this park are actually of, with ducks, geese and swans on it and a walkable loop around the edge.
The details
Before you go
- Dogs are not allowed anywhere on this park. It is one of only two Layton parks that close to dogs; the other twelve take leashed dogs, so a dog-owning household should head to one of those instead.
- The museum and the wave pool are both closed on Sundays. A weekend plan built on either one is a Saturday plan.
- Ask for the cabin tour at the museum. It is free and given on request.
- The pond is for walking, not fishing. It is not one of Davis County's stocked community fisheries, so plan to walk the loop rather than cast on it.
Getting there and parking
How to reach it, and where to leave the car
From Interstate 15, take the Layton Parkway exit and head east, or come down US-89 to Gentile Street and find Wasatch Drive; the campus sits along Wasatch between roughly 400 and 500 North. Parking is free, and there is a lot of it, close to 450 spaces spread across several lots rather than gathered in one, so on an ordinary day you will not circle for a spot.
Two occasions change that. The Fourth of July and the December light-display evenings are the only times parking here is genuinely tight, and on those nights the residential streets around the park take the overflow. If you are coming for either, arrive early or plan to walk a few blocks.
The two big days
The Fourth of July and six weeks of winter lights
Layton's Fourth of July celebration, Liberty Days, happens here on the campus and fills the day. The shape of it is a pancake breakfast at the Ed Kenley Amphitheater plaza, an early-morning fun run and walk, a flag raising, a mid-morning parade, then activities, food and vendor booths in the park through the afternoon, a free evening concert at the amphitheater, and fireworks after dark. The exact times and the parade route move from year to year, so check the city's Liberty Days page in June before you plan where to stand.
The other big date is free and runs for about six weeks. From late November through the end of December the park carries a light display every evening from dusk until eleven, walkable and drivable, with a free hayride night. One thing trips people up: the display is sometimes called Christmas Village and sometimes Lights Before Christmas, and the dates shift a little each year, so search the city's community calendar by both names in October to be sure you have the current season.
Between those two poles the campus does ordinary work. The amphitheater carries the Davis Arts Council's ticketed summer season, and the museum, the pool and the picnic shelters run through the year. Check the arts council's current program at davisarts.org before planning an evening around a show.
Two things about this park are easy to get wrong. First, dogs are not allowed anywhere on it, including the pond loop, and the city posts the rule in capital letters. A household arriving with a dog should head to one of the twelve Layton parks that take leashed dogs instead. Second, the pond is for looking, not fishing; it is not one of Davis County's stocked community fisheries. Where you can fish in Layton, and under what rules, is covered on the county lakeside parks page.
The museum and the money
A free city museum, and how the campus gets paid for
The Heritage Museum is the one door on this campus that leads straight back to why Layton exists. Alongside its collections it keeps the city's founding story: the years-long fight to break the farms free of Kaysville, the wagon a Kaysville tax collector seized, and the case the Supreme Court of the United States dismissed in 1894. The founding page tells that story in full; the museum at 403 North Wasatch is where the family's own material lives.
As for keeping the lights on, Layton funds a good deal of this campus through a local Recreation, Arts, Museum and Parks sales tax, a tenth of a percent that voters passed in 2015 and renewed in 2025. The city publishes the list of what it pays for each year, and recent awards on this campus alone include the wave machine at Surf 'n Swim, a children's room at the museum, a free film series, and lighting and sound work at the amphitheater end of the park. It is an unusually open way to see where a park's upkeep comes from.
Living near it
What it means to live a few streets from the campus
For an address in central Layton, this campus is the most useful single piece of geography in the city, because it folds about six errands into one short drive. A permit question at city hall, an afternoon at a free museum, a swim, a summer concert, a picnic shelter for a birthday and the place you take visiting relatives are all at 437 North Wasatch Drive. Very few cities of Layton's size have all of that on one site.
The trade is what any busy civic site costs its nearest streets. Two occasions a year the parking is genuinely difficult, and the December light display runs nightly for six weeks, which is a real and recurring feature of the blocks around the park. If you are looking at a house on one of those streets, it is worth driving them on a December evening as well as a quiet June afternoon before you decide.
The dog rule is the other thing worth planning around. The two Layton parks with the most in them are the two that close to dogs, so a dog-owning household's walking ground here is one of the twelve leashed-dog parks, the paved city trails, or the creek corridor at Kays Creek Parkway on the east side of the city. It is a different map than a newcomer assumes, not a hardship. The practical side of a Layton address, the market, the schools and the drive times, sits on the Layton city guide.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
Quick answers
The campus, answered
Layton Commons Park is at 437 North Wasatch Drive in Layton, and it covers 47 acres. That is also the address of Layton City Hall, because the municipal building stands inside the park rather than beside it. The grounds hold 450 parking spaces, four restrooms, two Little League baseball fields, two picnic pavilions, fifteen picnic shelters, two playgrounds, ten swings and a Vietnam Memorial Wall.
No. Dogs are not allowed anywhere on Layton Commons Park, and the city posts the rule in capital letters. It is one of only two Layton parks that close to dogs, along with Ellison Park; the city's other twelve parks take leashed dogs. A dog-owning household should head to one of those twelve instead.
There is a pond on the south side of the park, opposite the playground, with ducks, geese and swans on it, and a walkable loop around the edge. It is the most photographed spot on the campus. It is a place to walk rather than to fish, though: it is not one of the eight Davis County waters the state stocks and runs as community fisheries.
Several things at effectively one address. Layton City Hall at 437 North Wasatch Drive; the free Heritage Museum of Layton at 403 North Wasatch, with the Joseph Hill Cabin; Layton Surf 'n Swim at 465 North Wasatch, a city-run indoor wave pool; the Ed Kenley Amphitheater, built in 1995; the Davis Arts Council's box office in the city hall building; and the open ground itself with the duck pond, a Vietnam Memorial Wall and fifteen picnic shelters.
An open-air amphitheater built in 1995 inside Layton Commons Park, next to the Heritage Museum, seating roughly 1,700. Its full name is the Edward A. Kenley Centennial Amphitheater, and it was built by the Davis Arts Council in partnership with Layton City. It carries the arts council's summer concert season, and the council's own history names Chicago, The Doobie Brothers, Foreigner, Styx, Olivia Newton-John, The Beach Boys and REO Speedwagon among the acts that have played there.
The light display runs every evening from late November through the end of December, from dusk until eleven at night, and it is free to walk or drive, with a free hayride night. It is sometimes called Christmas Village and sometimes Lights Before Christmas, and the dates shift a little each year, so search Layton City's community calendar by both names in October to confirm the current season.
Layton's Fourth of July celebration, Liberty Days, runs here from early morning until after dark. The day includes a pancake breakfast at the amphitheater plaza, a fun run and walk, a flag raising, a mid-morning parade, afternoon activities and vendor booths, a free evening concert at the amphitheater, and fireworks after dark. The exact times and the parade route change from year to year, so check the city's Liberty Days page in June.
Yes. Layton Surf 'n Swim is a block north of city hall at 465 North Wasatch Drive, on the same campus and run by the same city. It is an indoor wave pool with eight wave patterns, an eight-lane lap area and two racquetball courts, and lanes and courts can be reserved online. Admission is a single low figure, and it changes with the summer and winter schedules, so the current price and hours are carried on the Davis County family weekends page rather than here.
Yes. Parking is free, with close to 450 spaces spread across several lots. On an ordinary day there is plenty. The two times it gets tight are the Fourth of July and the December light-display evenings, when the residential streets around the park take the overflow, so arrive early on those nights.
Weighing an address in Layton?
A campus like this one tells you more about how a city works than any summary can. If Layton is on your list, walk it once on a weekday and once on a December evening, then tell me what you are weighing and I will introduce you to a Davis County partner agent who knows these streets block by block.
Or call Scott: (435) 357-4345or send Scott a message
Keep going
Continue your Layton research
Eight more doors into Layton, chosen for what this page covers.
Questions about Layton?
Call Scott, send a message, or find out what your Layton home is worth. No pressure, no obligation.
Referral Disclosure: For moves outside Southern Utah, I can connect you with trusted local agents. If you choose to work with one, their brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee from their commission. This costs you nothing extra, and you are never obligated to use my referral.