Golden Gate Park was designed by William Hammond Hall. He become park commissioner in 1871 and was followed by John McLaren in 1887. McLaren had served apprenticeship to a landscape gardener in Scotland and spent 50 years working on Golden Gate Park. His office, McLaren Lodge, is a Moorish-Gothic style building. It is still the HQ of the Recreation and Parks Department and serves as a monument to McLaren's design philosophy: he favoured the Mixed Style. The Japanese Tea Garden began as the Japanese Village in the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition, or World's Fair. McLaren was approached by Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese landscape designer, who suggested making the feature permanent and adding a garden. It was maintained by his family from 1895 to 1942 (when they were moved to a concentration camp). Golden Gate Park also has a Dutch windmill, a conservatory, carpet bedding, an arboretum and a botanical garden. A fine example of a European mark transported to the west coast of the New World, the park attracts 75,000 visitors on an average weekend.
