Developer Mark Gabay buys UCLA’s Japanese Garden

The Hannah Carter Japanese Garden at 10920 Wilshire Boulevard and Mark Gabay
The Hannah Carter Japanese Garden at 10920 Wilshire Boulevard and Mark Gabay

Looks like the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden will continue to blossom, even after its sale to developer Mark Gabay.

UCLA has sold the landmark Bel-Air garden and its accompanying home for $12.5 million under the agreement that it will be kept in its current state for 30 years, the L.A. Times reported.

A former UC regent, Edward Carter, and his wife, Hannah Carter, donated the property to the university in 1964. Their children sued UCLA in 2011 when they found out the university was planning to auction the garden and the two-acre parcel of land on which it sits.

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The following year, an L.A. County Superior Court judge ruled that university officials were “duplicitous” in listing the garden without notifying the Carters and temporary halted the sale. It wasn’t until last September that UCLA and the regent heirs reached an agreement.

Located on Wilshire Boulevard, the garden is considered by landscaping experts to be one of the best Zen-style gardens in North America. Created by Nagao Sakurai and Kazuo Nakamura, the garden contains streams, a waterfall, tea house and magnolia and camellia trees. [LAT]