The Hannah Carter Japanese Garden is a private Japanese garden located in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California. Known as Shikyo-en when completed in 1961, it emphasizes water, stones, and evergreen plants. The naturalistic hillside site features streams, a waterfall, a tea house, and blooming magnolia and camellia trees. According to the Los Angeles Conservancy, the garden is among the largest and most significant private residential Japanese-style gardens built in the United States in the immediate Post-World War II period.[1] The garden was donated to the University of California, Los Angeles in 1965 and open to the public until 2011. Following a legal dispute with Hannah Carter's children, it was sold to a private citizen in 2016.
Location
The garden is located in a residential neighborhood at 10619 Bellagio Road in Bel Air, Los Angeles.[2][3][4]
History
The 1.5 acres (0.61ha) site was originally developed in 1927 by oilman Gordon G. Guiberson as a Hawaiian garden on the Harry Calandar estate by landscape architect A.E. Hanson (1893–1986).[3] It was dedicated to his mother, Ethel L. Guiberson, who founded the Beverly Hills Garden Club in the early 1930s.[3]
Edward Carter died in 1996. Hannah Carter lived in the house till 2006. After she died in 2009, the regents of the university asked a court to release them from the commitment to maintain the garden forever and allow the sale of the house and garden at auction.[11]
The Regents appealed the preliminary injunction. On September 16, 2013, the three judge Court of Appeal unanimously upheld the preliminary injunction.[13]
A trial date was scheduled beginning July 20, 2015 at the Santa Monica Courthouse of Los Angeles Superior Court.[11] In October 2015, the heirs agreed to let UCLA sell the garden as long as the new owners kept the garden intact for the next 30 years.[14] Meanwhile, the University of California Board of Regents established a US$500,000 endowment whose annual income to go to the preservation of the garden.[14]
In June 2016, UCLA sold the garden to developer Mark Gabay, the co-founder of the Charles Company, for US$12.5 million.[14] The new owner is not required to open the garden to the public.[15]
Overview
It features winding paths, a waterfall, and a stone pagoda.[16] Moreover, the main gate, garden houses, bridges and family shrines were built in Japan and reassembled in California.[3][17]
The garden includes only plants that grow in Japan.[3][18] For example, it includes the following trees: pine trees, redwood trees, apricot, magnolia, maple and plum trees, California Live Oak trees, pittosporum, and purple beech trees.[18]