The Huntington

The story

A single estate in San Marino holds a library, an art museum, and a spread of themed gardens all in one place.^4,6 The Huntington was founded in 1919 by Henry E. and Arabella Huntington, who turned their private property into a public institution.² The Huntington describes itself as a cultural and educational institution offering transformative experiences for a community of the curious.²

You can walk from a gallery of British portraits into a garden of desert plants and cacti, then wander on to a Chinese garden and a rose garden.^4,5 The Huntington presents itself as a place where history, literature, art, and the natural world come together.¹ It frames its mission as sharing its collections to support scholarship, foster learning, and inspire creativity.²

History

Henry Edwards Huntington was a railroad magnate and a collector of art and rare books who settled in Los Angeles.⁶ In 1903 he bought the San Marino Ranch, and he later helped found the City of San Marino.⁴ He and Arabella transformed their estate into a public institution in August 1919, opening their collections to promote the public welfare.²

Through the Pacific Electric Railway and other transit lines, Huntington helped link Southern California's far-flung communities.^4,6 His interest in art was shaped largely by Arabella.⁴ Wikipedia describes the portraits he assembled before his death in 1927 as the greatest group of eighteenth-century British portraits ever brought together by one person, and notes the collection opened to the public in 1928.⁴

Architect Myron Hunt designed the library building in 1920, working in the Mediterranean Revival style.⁴ In 1985 a fire in an elevator shaft damaged the Huntington Art Gallery, which reopened the following year after restoration.⁴ The Huntington marked its centennial with a year of exhibitions, programs, and a float in the 2020 Rose Parade in nearby Pasadena.⁴

What to see and do

The collections and gardens give you plenty of ways to fill a day here.²

• The Library

  Its holdings number around 12 million items reaching from the 11th century to the 21st, and Wikipedia notes rarities including one of eleven vellum Gutenberg Bibles known to exist.^2,4

• The Art Museum

  More than 50,000 artworks from Europe, America, and Asia span more than 2,000 years.²

• European galleries

  The original Huntington residence displays largely eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British and French paintings, including works by Gainsborough and Thomas Lawrence.⁴

• American galleries

  The Virginia Steele Scott Gallery of American Art holds paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, and photographs from the 17th to the mid-20th century.⁴

• The Desert Garden

  This ten-acre collection gathers more than 5,000 species of cacti, succulents, and other desert plants.⁵

• The Chinese Garden

  Liu Fang Yuan, the Garden of Flowing Fragrance, is among the themed gardens across the grounds.⁴

• The Camellia Collection

  Recognized as an International Camellia Garden of Excellence, it includes nearly eighty species and some 1,200 cultivated varieties.⁴

Why it matters

The Huntington is a place where literature, art, and living plants sit side by side.² Each year some 2,000 scholars from around the world come to study subjects ranging from art history and literature to botanical science and the history of science.² Around 1,100 active volunteers and more than 600 staff keep it running as an independent nonprofit.² For a visitor staying in the San Gabriel Valley, it offers deep research collections and sixteen themed gardens across roughly 130 acres in a single outing.²

Getting there

The Huntington is at 1151 Oxford Road in San Marino, California.^1,2 The grounds occupy Henry Huntington's former estate in San Marino near Pasadena.⁶