The Garden Estates: Huntington, Descanso, and Storrier Stearns
Three of the places people in this valley drive to on a Saturday were somebody’s yard. That is the thread running through this one. They were private grounds attached to private houses, and each of the three reached the public by a different route.
The Huntington, at 1151 Oxford Road in San Marino, was Henry E. Huntington’s property, and it opened to the public in 1928. Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge was likewise an estate before it became a public garden. The Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden is the smallest and the most surprising of the three: nearly two acres at 270 Arlington Drive in Pasadena, built from 1935 for Charles and Ellamae Storrier Stearns to a design by Kinzuchi Fujii, listed on the National Register in 2005, and still sitting behind a residential frontage on a Pasadena street.
One became an institution. One became a public garden. One stayed a garden inside a neighborhood. That difference is worth more than an afternoon of photographs, because it is three different answers to the same question about what happens to a large private property over a century.
The practical warning is about scheduling rather than distance. All three are within an easy drive of each other and none of them keeps the same calendar. Every one of them publishes its own hours, and those links are in the sources below and above for that reason.
The three cities do not work the same way as each other either. San Marino, La Canada Flintridge and Pasadena each have their own approach to what happens to old property inside their limits, and each of those pages carries the housing side of its city.
If a garden is the reason a neighborhood got your attention, and you get as far as pricing a house near one, Sell Odds estimates how likely that house is to sell at a given asking price rather than guessing what it is worth.
What do these three gardens have in common?
All three began as private estate grounds rather than as public parks. Each one is the surviving landscape of a private property, and each reached the public by a different route and at a different time.
Which one is the short visit and which one needs a day?
The Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden is the short one at nearly two acres, in the garden’s own words. The Huntington’s grounds are a different order of size and reward a long visit. Descanso sits between the two.
Where exactly are they?
The Huntington is at 1151 Oxford Road in San Marino. The Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden is at 270 Arlington Drive in Pasadena. Descanso Gardens is in La Canada Flintridge. Three gardens, three separate cities. Three cities means three different markets, and if you are weighing a house in one of them, Sell Odds estimates how likely it is to sell at a given asking price.
Is the Japanese garden really behind houses on an ordinary street?
Yes. It sits on Arlington Drive in west Pasadena with a residential frontage, and the National Register listing is for the garden itself. Reference 05000050, listed 15 February 2005.
Who designed the Japanese garden and when?
Kinzuchi Fujii, a first generation Japanese immigrant landscape designer, working for Charles and Ellamae Storrier Stearns from 1935. It is a hill and pond strolling garden, which is the form that makes a small garden feel larger than it is.
When did the Huntington open to the public?
It opened to the public in 1928, after the death of its founder Henry E. Huntington. The grounds were the private landscape of his San Marino property before that.
Can I do all three in one day?
They are close enough to reach in one day by car, but the schedules are the problem rather than the distance. Each of the three sets its own open days, hours, admission and reservation rules, and they do not line up with each other. Check all three operators before you commit a day, because I am not going to print hours here that will be wrong by the time you read them.
Why would any of this matter if I am looking at houses?
Because two of the three sit inside residential neighborhoods rather than apart from them, and walking the streets around a garden tells you something the garden itself does not. That is my own habit rather than a claim from any record. If one of these three neighborhoods is where you are actually headed, I will walk it with you.
Sources and references.
- National Register of Historic Places, public search, The federal list itself. The Storrier Stearns garden is reference 05000050, listed 15 February 2005., National Park Service (https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/BasicSearch/)
- The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, Hours, admission, reservations and directions from the institution itself, at 1151 Oxford Road in San Marino., The Huntington (https://huntington.org/)
- Plan Your Visit, Hours, admission, parking and directions from the garden itself, so the reader holds the authority when any of it changes., Descanso Gardens (https://www.descansogardens.org/visit/plan-your-visit/)
- Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden, Open days, admission and visitor guidelines from the garden itself, at 270 Arlington Drive in Pasadena., Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden (https://www.japanesegardenpasadena.com/)
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