What to Know
- The Rose Garden Tea Room at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens will reopen on May 24, 2023; reservations open on May 10
- The venue, located in a building constructed in 1911, will include several new features, including an outdoor pavilion
- The 18-month renovation will expand the dining destination, which once served as a billiards room and bowling alley for Henry E. Huntington
Rainy days can be true gifts for cultivated gardens, those lush expanses where a variety of roses hold colorful court.
And there are few places as petal-packed as the famous Rose Garden at The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, a picturesque oasis that sits next to a stately structure.
That building, which turned 100 in 2011, was the billiards room and bowling alley of Henry E. Huntington, the founder of the grand estate.
Get Southern California news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC LA newsletters.
In recent years, the building transformed into an elegant tea room, soon becoming a popular spot to honor special celebrations.
Those sweet occasions were put on hold, first in March 2020, when the Rose Garden Tea Room shuttered in response to the pandemic, and then in early 2021, when a new vision for the space took root.
That's when a large-scale renovation began, a sizable updating that would give the tea room a new outdoor pavilion next to the lovely Shakespeare Garden and an overall "improvement in functionality."
The Scene
Want to find new things to do in Los Angeles? The Scene's lifestyle stories have you covered. Here's your go-to source on where the fun is across SoCal and for the weekend.
But like a rose will bloom when the time is just right, the Rose Garden Tea Room will soon make its springtime debut: Wednesday, May 24 has been set as the reopening date for the storied San Marino spot.
Reservations open on May 10.
"This renovation celebrates one of our most beloved historic structures, acknowledging what has been one of the area's most iconic dining destinations since it first opened to the public many decades ago," said Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence.
"These innovative upgrades will make for an extraordinary tea experience. The Shakespeare Garden pavilion expands our capacity and creates a fluid space between indoors and outdoors that our visitors will love."
and the new pavilion opening onto the Shakespeare Garden. Photo: Architectural Resource Group (ARG)
