After visiting the mansion we finally got to see the gardens and can I just say Wow. First of all there are several of them and each has its own theme. Transportation is available if needed, but we walked and the footprint is very large so we got lots of steps in.
We started with the Rose garden and this was my absolute favorite. Roses are my favorite flower, but I have never seen such a wonderful variety of types and the smell was absolutely amazing.
Absolutely gorgeous. I was getting very hungry at this point so we walked down to the Chinese Garden and had a lovely lunch at the Chinese restaurant on site. Then we walked all the way around the pond exploring the variety of buildings and art pieces. Each section had a plaque that showed who had donated particular exhibits and it really was a beautiful and peaceful area.
Yummy food and reasonably pricedEvery exhibit was named which was a wonderful touch
They even had a waterfall feature which was very well done and a bonsai tree section which I loved. Many of these trees were very old and had been donated to the gardens.
Even the larger trees had wires sculpting them
Probably my favorite part though were the shaped windows and doorways and I got a little silly trying to match the shapes.
After the Chinese Garden we headed to the Japanese garden which had its own group of bonsai trees and a Japanese house which was interesting to see. The bamboo was also beautiful and so tall.
HUGE Rock Garden
Lastly we walked through the subtropical garden which had some huge trees I have only seen in movies.
At this point we still had the Desert garden, Australia Garden, and Children’s garden but at 11,000 steps I was done in. We promised that we would come back soon to finish the other areas, but we headed back to the front and thankfully had enough energy left to visit the beautiful gift shop. Again I will say this was the best $25 I have spent since being in LA and in my opinion a must see if you are in the Pasadena area.
I bought this cool bookLee bought himself a Bonsai Tree kit
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I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting much when we decided to visit the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, but since I took the Friday before Memorial Day off I thought it was worth a try. Turns out the Huntington was absolutely amazing and hands down the best $25 I have spent since arriving in LA. Seriously.
I knew something was up when we arrived before they opened and the parking lot was already pretty full. I was surprised because it was a weekday, but thought maybe there was a special event of some kind. We took careful note of where we parked…the parking lot is BIG…and headed inside.
Beautiful flowers right in the parking lotIt was an overcast day and my pictures don’t really do this justice
Since it was a little chilly, we took one of the staff’s advice and did the buildings first. I should say there were tons of staff throughout our visit and every person who worked there was very nice. The first building we went into showed the Huntington family who had donated the estate over 100 years ago in 1919.
Next was the library, and it blew me away. Not only did they have works from the 1390’s they had the Canterbury Tales. Beautiful manuscripts and gorgeously illustrated.
Lee loved this old safeThis large Audobon book with life size bird painting was beautiful
The most amazing thing they had though for me was an original Gutenberg Bible. The printing of the bible is commonly thought to be the most impactful achievement in human history because it gave the masses access to literature and changed religion forever. It gave me chills that I was seeing one of only 49 copies left in the world. I couldn’t stop looking at it.
But in a wonderful twist they also had a piece that was printed in 1085 by Buddhist Monks reminding us that European history is not all of human history.
Gorgeous and yes it took up an entire room
Outside of the building was also very beautiful and as we moved towards the original house we admired the grounds. We saw several plants I had rarely (if ever) seen before and they were all clearly marked. The grounds also had several original statues and fountains which were beautiful as well.
We loved this grassThe Library
We have visited many mansions in our travel, but the Huntington House was pretty special. First the inside was impeccably maintained and it was covered with their art collection. Sometimes when you visit a house and don’t care for the taste of the owner it can be a little disappointing but in this case I absolutely loved Arabella’s choices. Her painting and sculptures were all very unique and to the point where I started to notice the art that was less interesting to me was often donated by others. She was particularly fond of the artists Rodney, Reynolds, and Gainesburg and bought everything she could get from them.
Loved this book ladderThe ceilings were gorgeous and very intricate with multiple patternsI loved this clock
Unlike some other mansions we have toured this one allowed you to get very close to the art and even though they had staff in every room they were again very nice and answered many questions for me.
Very cool fireplace sculpture of DionysusLee got VERY excited when he saw this picture.
Do you recognize the picture of the man above?? He is the gentleman who invented the first dictionary, but Lee was excited because he is also a famous meme. I don’t pay much attention to those but Lee was blown away to see the original in person. Hey whatever gets you interested in art 🙂
The three witches from MacBeth. SpookyI loved this oneLee loves taking closeups of the tiny figures in paintings. He is impressed by that level of detail and all the closeups are his.
My favorite though was The Blue Boy. I remember this painting from childhood mainly because of the outfit and the look on his face and I had no idea it was in a private collection in California. I always assumed it would be in a museum in Europe and I was thrilled when I walked into the gallery and saw the painting. I was so shocked I asked a docent if it was the original painting and she smiled somewhat indulgently and said yes it was. I was blown away and spent a lot of time looking at the painting. It was hard to get a picture without glare because of the lighting, but here is the best I could get.
My other favorite was a picture of a volcano that was really mesmerizing. Again I didn’t really capture its essence but here it is. Super cool.
Along with the paintings and sculptures they also had several beautiful household items. My favorites were a spoon collection with the twelve apostles carved on the ends and some beautiful potpourri vases. I don’t know that I have ever seen vases like this before but what a beautiful way to have art that is also functional.
This statue of a regular person was very interestingGorgeous stain glass window from a churchNice view!A Potpourri vaseThe spoons
After we saw the inside of the house we walked outside and looked at the terrace which had gorgeous views of the gardens. I am going to stop here and pick up with the gardens and other museum in part 2 but I wanted to leave you with some nature before I come back.
View of the house from the TerraceIt looks like a painting but no it is there garden!
We very much appreciate your support of our blog
You can purchase the ebook telling the story of how we became full-time RVers.
You can purchase our recipe book filled with 80 recipes we have cooked in our RV and taste tested by Lee himself. You can purchase the kindle or paperbackversion on Amazonor buy the Apple version on Itunes
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