February 28, 2018

The Japanese Garden at The Huntington The Huntington Library and Gardens are on the former estate of Henry Huntington in San Marino, California; just south of Pasadena. Henry Huntington ran the Pacific Electric Railroad which ran the Red Car transit system; he even had a spur into his estate for his private car. He built his mansion with a view of the San Gabriels at the top of a slope formed by the Raymond fault. After his death in 1927, the estate became the Huntington Library and Gardens with his mansion becoming the European Art Gallery(the most famous works housed there are Pinkie and Blue Boy). During Huntington’s time at the estate; the Japanese, rose, and desert gardens were the only gardens that existed. The palm garden, jungle garden, Australian garden, and the Chinese garden were added later. The Chinese Garden is the most recent addition with the first phase opening in 2008 and the second in 2014(there are still 3 more pavilions yet to be completed). The Japanese Garden is one of the largest at the Huntington(the Desert Garden may be larger). It has a tea house that was imported from Japan(was torn down in Japan and shipped here and rebuilt), a bonsai area, waterfalls, and the bridge(which was painted orange but they discovered that it was originally unpainted so that’s the way it is now). After I finished the post on the Chinese Garden, I ran across this interactive map of Huntington’s Pacific Electric Red Car lines. The map shows how extensive the Red Car was and also some remnants that still exist(we saw some in the photos from Echo Mountain).