The Huntington Tea Room courtesy of The Huntinton Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens facebook page
Following a three-year closure, the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens Rose Garden Tea Room will reopen to the public on May 24.
Dining reservations can be made beginning May 10 through OpenTable.
The Tea Room closed in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and then underwent a major 18-month renovation.
“This renovation celebrates one of our most beloved historic structures, acknowledging what has been one of the area’s most iconic dining destinations since it first opened to the public many decades ago,” said Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence. “These innovative upgrades will make for an extraordinary tea experience. The Shakespeare Garden pavilion expands our capacity and creates a fluid space between indoors and outdoors that our visitors will love.”
Built in 1911, the Rose Garden Tea Room was designed by architect Myron Hunt to serve as a billiard room and bowling alley for Huntington founder Henry E. Huntington.
Hunt also designed Henry and wife Arabella Huntington’s residence (now the Huntington Art Gallery), the Library building, and the Huntingtons’ garage (now the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery).
Building renovations include the restoration of the front of the original 1911 building, a sweeping new outdoor dining area on the east side, facing the Shakespeare Garden; and the improvement of functionality in its service areas.
On the west side of the building, the room that faces the Herb Garden has been renovated and will be made available for private rentals. At capacity, the entire space can serve 169 people, including the front room known as the Tea Room, the Herb Room on the building’s west side, and the outdoor Shakespeare Room on the building’s east side. The project was developed by The Huntington with Architectural Resources Group.
A high tea option will include champagne and such items as lobster salad in phyllo with Maldon sea salt and shaved black truffles.
The $11.2 million project broke ground in late 2021 and is being funded entirely through philanthropic gifts.
“The Tea Room is part of the historic core of The Huntington,” said Stephen Farneth, the project architect for the Tea Room’s renovation. “Everything at The Huntington is about indoors and outdoors and so, with the Tea Room project, we thought it was important to connect the building to some of the visual and physical elements of the surrounding gardens.”
In 1928, a year after Henry Huntington’s death (Arabella died in 1924), The Huntington opened to the public, and the billiard room and bowling alley were transformed into a “tearoom,” serving luncheon for visitors, staff, and researchers. A menu from 1940 lists options such as bread and butter with jam, toasted English muffins with marmalade, and lettuce-and-mayonnaise sandwiches. Food service for visitors was interrupted between 1943 and 1959 because the endeavor was losing money.
In the 1960s and ’70s, the space served as an extension of the cafeteria used by staff and visiting researchers, and it was also used for casual meetings. “Afternoon tea,” drawing on the English style of tea service, began to be offered in the 1980s and has continued since then.
