» 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