Behind the Scenes with Lake Bell

Wonderland

Walska, a socialite who married six times, created the property's 16 different gardens, which contain more than 3,200 varieties of plants. She could often be found on her knees digging in the soil, and she oversaw the ground's design until her death in 1984. In the 1970s, she auctioned pieces from her jewelry collection to raise $1 million to plant her final masterpiece, the Cycad Garden. The estate now features one of the most diverse collections of these prehistoric plants in the U.S.