In this era of travel specialization, San Marino hosts a site that is culturally and aesthetically diverse. Part Chinese landscape, part European art museum and part archival library, the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens are a 120-acre paradise 12 miles east of Los Angeles.

Henry E. Huntington was one of Southern California's first entrepreneurs and an avid collector of rare books, artwork and botany. He and his wife, Arabella, established the Huntington in 1919 as a haven for their passions, but also to inspire future pursuits. In 1928, a year after Henry Huntington's death, the grounds and his Gregorian manor opened to the public.

The organization's reputation arises from its ability to put the world on display. "Privileged is a way to describe how we feel about the institution," said Huntington Vice President Susan Turner-Lowe. "A number of staffers have been here for most of their career because they feel such pride to work around the institution and the collections. From the curators to the gardeners, our staff is intimately involved with these collections as if it was their own."

Home to Charles Bukowski's literary archives, Edison International's photo archive, and an original vellum Gutenberg Bible, Huntington's cultural appreciations pervade the collection. The couple's fondness for British and French art is seen in their permanent collection, which includes Thomas Gainsborough's "The Blue Boy." The Arabella Huntington Memorial Collection serves as tribute to Huntington's wife and her penchant for Renaissance paintings, sculpture and European furniture.

Their love of culture and history was matched by their passion for exotic plants. The 12 principal gardens, including a teaching greenhouse, spawn a range of flora from all over the globe. From Australian backcountry to bamboo-laden tropical rain forests, it is a living botanical textbook for the 500,000 people who visit annually.

A new gem has emerged in the form of the Chinese Garden, a place where architecture, topography and landscaping converge to create a larger sense of art.

Access to the Chinese Garden is fleeting. Only operating in a "preview" mode, the area closes again in February for final construction and will reopen permanently in 2008. "It is a work in progress. It looks beautiful now. but it is going to look stunningly spectacular when it's done. It's so different from any other garden we have," Turner-Lowe said.

The Chinese Garden, with its hand-carved stone bridges and canopy of camellias, melds art and botanical tradition, nothing new in Chinese culture. "While favored as beautiful decorative motifs, they have had deeper meanings in Chinese cultural traditions for centuries," said June Li, curator of the exhibit and the Chinese Garden. The preview is timed to the art gallery's exhibit, "Chrysanthemums on the Eastern Hedge: Gardens and Plants in Chinese Art."

"Chinese artisans and scholars are involved. We are trying to be as authentic as possible," Turner-Lowe added. "It's been an incredible bicultural experience."

In the Munger Library, the recently added "First Freedoms," serves as a window into the world of the press and Southern California's dawning as seen by the Los Angeles Times.

"Freedom of the press is something most of us take for granted," said exhibition curator Dan Lewis. Included in the Times' inventory is the complete collection of columns by Al Martinez as well as Jack Smith's career-spanning work and a lifetime of Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Conrad's history-reflecting editorial cartoons. "By using the newspaper's 125th anniversary, we get an opportunity to really begin to explore the often-complex nature of the issue and how the press grapples on a daily basis with its many manifestations."

The library, a 90,000-square-foot building opened in 2004, has perpetuated the literary giving. "We have the space to store, and acquisitions seem to beget collections," Turner-Lowe said. Southern California's Latino journalistic growth is chronicled with the October addition of La Opinion's 80-year archive to the Huntington Library. La Opinion joins a long list of chroniclers of California's growth.

Also home to an Ellesmere manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," the Huntington library is permeated by Henry Huntington's literary leanings. The Huntingtons have left behind something in San Marino that appreciates all that arises from the ground and the mind.

For more on the Huntington, contact (626) 405-2100 or visit www.huntington.org.

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Membership: Beginning at $100/year

Admission for nonmembers: $15 adults, $12 seniors, $10 students, $6 age 5-11