Golden Gate Park’s medieval monastery stones: where you'll find them and why they're there

When writing my book Golden Gate Park: An A to Z Adventure, I knew from the start that “M” had to be for “monastery stones.”

The story behind the ancient carved stones that you’ll find throughout Golden Gate Park is fascinating, and once you know what they look like, they’re so fun to search for.

I first learned about the monastery stones thanks to an SF City Guides walk I did many years ago. I’ve been hunting for them ever since, and you can, too!

The fascinating story behind the monastery stones

This story goes all the way back to 1167, when the Santa Maria de Óvila monastery was founded by King Alfonso VIII of Castile in Spain. It was spectacular – a complex of intricately-designed buildings of carved stone, including a massive church.

It was almost like a medieval castle, which is why it caught the eye of William Randolph Hearst’s art dealer in the 1920s. By then the monastery was empty and had fallen into disrepair. But… it was still incredible.

Wealthy businessman William Randolph Hearst had already built one castle in California. Now we wanted another castle built in Northern California, and one even more spectacular. So Hearst purchased the monastery. He then paid for eleven ships full of the carefully-labeled stones to sail all the way to San Francisco.

But his plan to use the ancient Santa María de Óvila monastery stones was not to be. Hearst ran out of money before architects could finish a design. Eventually he gifted the stones to the City of San Francisco. And then the connection to Golden Gate Park begins.

How the monastery stones got to Golden Gate Park

A new idea emerged in the early 1940s: why not rebuild the monastery in Golden Gate Park and make it a museum of medieval art? Somewhat controversial plans moved forward, and the crates of stones were moved into Golden Gate Park.

But a series of fires in the 1940s and 1950s ultimately made putting the monastery back together impossible, except for two parts.

In 1965, the church portal was reassembled and became part of an entrance to the (previous) de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. (The portal’s stones had been in a separate warehouse from where the damaging fires had occurred.)

When the original de Young Museum was demolished in 2002, the portal was donated to the University of San Francisco. You can go see it at the University of San Francisco Hilltop campus as the backdrop of the Kalmanovitz Amphitheater.

In 2013, the chapter house was successfully rebuilt at the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina, California. It used about two-thirds of the original stones.

Where you’ll find the stones today

Somewhere in the midst of all that, the monastery stones started to be used in Golden Gate Park for landscaping. You’ll find them around Stow Lake and in the Japanese Tea Garden, Botanical Garden, National AIDS Memorial Grove, and many more places. I’m constantly surprised where I stumble on one.

Searching for the monastery stones in the park is a scavenger hunt in itself. I also created a one-mile loop walk that will take you to some hot spots. It starts by the Koret Children’s Quarter.

Here’s the link to the monastery stone map.

Share your finds with #monasterystones and #GoldenGateParkAtoZ. Tag me on Instagram and Twitter.

As always, my gratitude to Christopher Pollock. His book San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park: A Thousand and Seventeen Acres of Stories, has been invaluable to my research.