Henrybuilt Showroom

Downtown L.A.

The trash-strewn asphalt yard facing the alley behind 806 Mateo Street seemed an unlikely place for a garden. But, before it was paved, it had always been a garden. The location is in the old, braided bed of the Los Angeles River, once verdant, filled with trout and bears, shaded by sycamores and willows. From the late 1700s, it was part of the irrigated fields that grew grapes and wheat using the river’s water for the Spanish pueblo a few miles away. Starting in 2021, when we stripped away the asphalt and began to dig, we found the layers. First, perfect soil—rich sandy loam with lenses of small, rounded sandstone rocks—soil so fine and well-drained it is a rare treasure in clayey L.A. Then evidence of the site’s life as a workshop or factory: floors of bricks, rusted tools, and oddly, seashells—clams and oysters left over from the barbecues of the people who worked or even lived here.

The new garden speaks to the layers of its history. The sycamores are the same as those that once might have grown here—an indicator species of running water. The olives, a variety called ‘Sevillano’ brought to California by the Spanish,   

were transplanted from the Central Valley, reminding us of the state’s history of settlement and agriculture. (We kept a chunk of volcanic rock from the Western Sierra Nevada foothills that one of the olive trees clutched in its roots when it traveled here.) So too the Mediterranean plants: lavender, rosemary, rockrose, euphorbia. The roses, camellias, and jasmine are part of the fragrant, flowery lushness of classic California gardens. The bench and fountain are both old and modern, harking back to Spanish Mission forms but with clean and spare geometry fit to the human form. Henrybuilt’s Downtown L.A. garden is the timeless California garden: now as always, a trickle of water in a semi-arid place brings life, beauty, and bounty.