An ingenious arrangement of the parterre and a peculiar distribution of some trees, together with a profusion of plants and flowers—affording cool and shady bowers, somewhat similar to those of a typical beer or wine garden of the Fatherland—gave the place great popularity; while two heroic statues—one of Adam and the other of Eve—with a conglomeration of other curiosities, including the Apple Tree and the Serpent—all illustrating the world-old story of Eden—and a moving panorama made the Garden unique and rather famous.

— Harris Newmark, 1858 · Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853–1913 (1916) · via Project Gutenberg

Why it's here: Weird & curious: from 1856 George Lehman, known as “Round House George”, turned this round adobe on Main Street into the Garden of Paradise, a pleasure garden themed on Eden. Harris Newmark arrived in Los Angeles in 1853 and became one of its leading merchants. The building later housed Southern California’s first kindergarten, and was torn down in 1889.