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» CA.ARCHITECTURE & GARDENS 38 2 013 travel guide to c al ifo r n i a THE WALT DISNEY C0NCERT HALL in Los Angeles, designed by Frank Gehry, was completed in 2003, above. » FIND YOUR STYLE & DESIGN ARCHITECTURE Golden Gate Bridge goldengatebridge.org San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) sfmoma.org California Missions Resource Center missionscalifornia.com de Young Museum deyoung.famsf.org Main Quad, Stanford University stanford.edu/dept/visitorinfo/tours GARDENS Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanical Garden arboretum.org Casa de Balboa balboapark.org San Gabriel Civic Auditorium missionplayhouse.org Walking Tours of San Francisco sfcityguides.org The Gamble House gamblehouse.org The Thorsen House calsigmaphi.org Maybeck Houses Tour of Berkeley (Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association) berkeleyheritage.com San Francisco Botanical Garden (formerly Strybing Arboretum) sfbotanicalgarden.org Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden gardenbythesea.org Ganna Walska Lotusland lotusland.org Casa del Herrero, House of the Blacksmith casadelherrero.com Filoli filoli.org Walt Disney Concert Hall laphil.com Hakone Garden hakone.com The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) moca.org Gamble Garden gamblegarden.org GERRY BOUGHAN / SHUTTERSTOCK enfolded in the breath of the sea and the sound of the waves. In Montecito, near Santa Barbara, lies Lotusland, the garden of Madame Ganna Walska, a woman of many passports and husbands. This 37-acre amalgam of more than a dozen gardens is magically woven together by a web of densely planted pathways. Two of the most distinguished gardens are the Aloe Garden with 170 varieties and the Cycad Garden containing 50 percent of the world's known species. Minutes away is Casa del Herrero, a winter retreat built by St. Louis engineer George Steedman in Spanish Colonial Revival style. Its mysterious Moorish garden is in the shape of a cross. Tiled fountains form its central axis. Intimate garden rooms walled by hedges, plants and trees await discovery. On one of the birdhouses Steedman inscribed: "Use well thy time. Fast fly the hours. Good works live on. The night brings rest." William Bourn had his own credo, which is evident in the name of his estate, Filoli: "FIght for a just cause; LOve your fellow man; LIve a good life." Filoli, a 654-acre estate 30 miles south of San Francisco, is renowned for its Englishstyle garden. But the treasure of the estate is its Gentlemen's Orchard with more than 360 varieties of apples, pears, grapes and peaches, making it one of the largest heirloom orchards in the country. In the heart of Silicon Valley, Hakone Garden, designed in 1918, is named after Fuji-Hakone National Park in Japan. Passing the mon, or the main gate, you retreat into the tranquil, meditative garden where each stone, each path, each view evokes contemplation and awareness of the present. It is easy to miss the 2.5-acre Gamble Garden in Palo Alto. Elements from English and French gardens are in perfect harmony. A narrow cherrytree-lined allée leads you to a sundial, a fountain in a grotto and finally the entrance to a circular rose garden. Suddenly, the view expands and you are reminded of the intimate pleasures to be found in California's gardens and architectural diversity. CA