Another visit to the Huntington

[Mikey]

Today we visited the Huntington Library/Botanical Gardens in San Marino.  They are in the process of building a 15 million dollar Chinese garden.  Phase I, the building of a 1.5 acre koi pond is now complete and they have opened the area for a 6 month preview before again closing it and going into phase II that will involve the building of a bunch of pavilions and finishing of the planting.  There are presently only a few lotus and lilies on the pond but they will increase significantly as they move into phase II.  Due to the water clarity it is obvious they must have a monstrous filtration system somewhere hidden out of sight.  The pond is ringed by very interesting rock formations that they brought in from China.  The stone construction of 5 bridges and the placement of rock formations was delayed a few months because the workmen are from China and Homeland Security wouldn’t allow them into the country at first.  The target date for the completion of phase II construction is in the fall of 2008.  We arrived late in the day and it was very sunny so I didn’t take many photos.





Most of the pond is shallow around the sides for viewing of the koi and growing of lilies and lotus but I noticed very dark looking water towards the middle area of the pond indicating it is much deeper there.  Most of the koi are still quite small and the larger ones probably came from other ponds in the gardens.

[Teresa]

Looks like it's going to be spectacular when it's finished!  What is the Library?

[Mikey]

The library has a collection of rare books and manuscripts mostly on American and British history.  It's one of the largest research libraries in the U.S.  They have roughly 6 million items of research material in their library.  For the public they periodically have special viewing of various books.  For example last year they had a public viewing of hundreds of Bibles of various ages and a written description of how, when and where they were written. 

[sheepco]

My visit to the Hungtington Gardens/Library was one of the highlights of one my trips to CA (about 8 years ago). It was so lovely and soothing in the midst of LA. Now that my relatives have moved from CA I don't keep up with the local doings, but the Huntington is amazing and deserves the upgrade! I would recommend a visit!! And I will certainly go back again when I get back to the area. It's right up there, maybe even above, the Getty in my book!

[LeeAnne151]

When they are done, it will be awesome. Portland has a small Chinese garden downtown but it is spectacular. There are a lot of those really unusual rock formations imported from China and the buildings were made from imported stone/tiles etc. too, I think. It is well worth visiting.

I think I should have taken the Partayers there since it was on one level instead of all the elevations at the Japanese garden but I didn't think about it. Oops.