Coyote Blog

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I were in Pasadena and we visited the Huntington.  I almost never see it on list of things to do in LA.  This list has 22 things including some odd choices but no mention of the Huntington.

The Huntington is the mansion and grounds of one of the heirs to railroad magnate Collis P Huntington.  Perhaps one of the reasons it is not well-known is that it is hard to exactly categorize what this place is.  First, it is an amazing garden (pictures below) that has a desert garden, a tropical garden, a temperate garden, a Japanese garden, the bonsai garden, a Chinese garden, a water garden, a rose garden and an herb garden.  I have been to a lot of gardens and arboretums around the world and this compares to the best.  More enjoyable, for example, than either major arboretum in Singapore which top tourist lists.  Then, there are the art museums, actually two.  We only made it to the European art museum, which was in the original mansion -- it contained a lot of large portraiture by Sargent and Gainsborough, among other works.  And then there is what is actually the centerpiece of the facility, the library.  Only a small part of the collection is on display, but what is there is amazing -- from fabulous illuminated manuscripts to a Gutenberg Bible to a number of signature historical documents.   As icing on the cake, there is the chance to walk through a couple of great mansions with a good part of the original furnishings intact.

The closest analog I can come up with is the Getty.  The Getty gets top billing in many LA must-do lists, and I can tell you that the Huntington blows the Getty away.  Sure, you should see the Getty, but I have never had a desire to go back.  I will be back to the Huntington as soon as I can.

I could fill this post with pictures, but I will simply provide a few teasers: