Some very old stones are scattered throughout Golden Gate Park. Unremarkable at first glance, but when assembled they form the soaring arches and ornately carved pillars of a medieval Spanish monastery.

The stones originally made up the 12th century Cisterian monastery of Santa Maria de Ovila in Spain. The abandoned buildings were purchased by William Randolph Hearst in 1931, part of his elaborate Wyntoon estate building project in Northern California. It took eleven ships to bring all of the stones to the U.S. where they were held in a San Francisco warehouse.

When the Depression began to take its toll on Hearst's fortunes, he abandoned the project and sold the stones to the city. San Francisco made plans to rebuild the structure in Golden Gate Park - a project immediately made more complicated when a fire destroyed all of the packing crates showing the key markings for reconstruction.

Finally, in the 1960s, the remaining stones were distributed throughout the park including the Strybing Arboretum Library Terrace Garden and Japanese Tea Garden.

Elsewhere in the park, two so-called "Druid circles" hide in the wooded areas and act as sacred spaces for occasional ceremonies. Further north in Sacramento Valley, the remainder of the stones are getting an unexpected new life as the Chapter House of the Abbey of New Clairvaux.