Zoro Garden: Balboa Park's Butterfly Garden & Nudist Past

Zoro Garden is a small sunken stone garden in Balboa Park, tucked between the Fleet Science Center and the Casa de Balboa, and planted today as a free butterfly garden. Its fame comes from 1935, when it hosted the Zoro Garden Nudist Colony, a paid sideshow at the California Pacific International Exposition. Today it takes about 15 minutes to see and fits easily into any walk along El Prado.

Where Zoro Garden is and how to find it

The garden sits just south of El Prado, the park’s main promenade, in a hollow between the Fleet Science Center and the Casa de Balboa museum building. Head to the Fleet end of El Prado and look for the stone steps dropping down into the hollow. Because it’s below the walkway, a lot of visitors walk right past it.

There’s no gate, ticket or posted fee. The Balboa Park gardens directory lists Zoro Garden as one of the park’s public gardens, and like the rest of the park’s outdoor spaces it is open to wander year-round. The garden can also be reserved for private events, so on some weekends you may find a wedding or photo shoot underway. If so, give them space and come back later.

What’s there now

Zoro Garden is a sunken stone amphitheater. Rough terraced rock walls and steps curve down to a small lawn, shaded by mature ficus trees and edged with perennials. The garden is planted for butterflies. Nectar plants feed the adults, larval host plants feed the caterpillars, and hollows in the rock collect water where butterflies stop to drink. Monarchs, sulfurs and swallowtails are the species most often seen.

It’s a quiet spot. A few minutes here makes a good contrast to the crowds on El Prado, and the stone ledges make natural seats. Kids tend to like it, because the steps and levels feel like a secret hideout.

Tips for seeing butterflies

• Go on a sunny, still morning or around midday. Butterflies are most active when it’s warm and calm, and less so on overcast, breezy days.
• Look at the flowers, not the sky. Stand still near blooming plants for a few minutes, and the butterflies will come to you.
• Check the leaves. On host plants, look for caterpillars and chewed leaves. That’s the garden doing its job.
• Don’t touch or pick. Stay on the paths and leave plants and insects alone.

If butterflies are your main interest, San Diego’s best monarch viewing is in late fall and winter at the coast. Our monarch butterfly migration guide covers when and where.

The 1935 nudist colony

The garden became famous during the second world’s fair Balboa Park hosted, the 1935-36 California Pacific International Exposition. Sources disagree on exactly when the garden was built. Some date the site to the 1915-16 Panama-California Exposition. A 2017 historical marker placed by Friends of Balboa Park credits architect Richard Requa with designing the sunken garden and stone amphitheater, built by government-funded relief workers during the Great Depression.

What happened there in 1935 isn’t in dispute. Sideshow promoters Nate Eagle and Stanley R. Graham turned the hollow into the Zoro Garden Nudist Colony, a fenced attraction where paying visitors watched “nudists” go about their day.

Here is what accounts from the time and later histories describe:

• The performers were mostly hired actors, not committed nudists. Women typically wore G-strings and men wore loincloths or trunks. Local historians note that some women wore flesh-colored coverings.
• The show was daily life, staged. Performers sunbathed, read, ate, and played volleyball and handball. Several times a day they performed a mock ceremony, the “Sacrifice to the Sun God.”
• It had a queen. The colony was ruled by a fictional “Queen Zorine,” a role later taken over by other performers.
• Admission was cheap, and peeking was free. Tickets cost 25 cents in 1935, and later accounts say the price rose to 75 cents in 1936. Plenty of people watched for nothing through knotholes in the wooden fence around the rim.
• It made money. It became one of the exposition’s most lucrative outdoor attractions. The 2017 marker repeats naturist historians’ claim that it was the only known nudist colony in the world to sell tickets to spectators.

Protests and closure

The exhibit drew protests from groups including the San Diego Council of Catholic Women. The district attorney reviewed a rehearsal and let it open, since no law covered this kind of staged near-nudity. The city manager promised there would be no “indecent” shows in the second season, but the colony carried on. It closed on August 27, 1936, reportedly after a financial dispute with exposition officials.

The Wikipedia history of the Zoro Garden Nudist Colony collects contemporary newspaper accounts if you want to read more. The garden itself has no exhibit about this era, so knowing the story before you arrive makes the visit much more fun.

Is there a “Balboa Park maze”?

Balboa Park doesn’t list a hedge maze among its gardens. If you’re looking for one, you probably have one of two places in mind:

• Zoro Garden itself, with its uneven stone steps and terraces winding down into the hollow, has a maze-like, hidden feel.
• Alcazar Garden, a short walk west along El Prado, has low clipped boxwood hedges laid out in geometric beds around tiled fountains. From above it looks like a puzzle, but the hedges are only knee-high.

Getting there and parking

Zoro Garden is in the heart of the Central Mesa, so any route to the El Prado museums works.

• Parking: The closest lots are the Space Theater lot by the Fleet and the Casa de Balboa lot. Both are “Level 1” premium lots in the city’s paid parking program. The City of San Diego’s Balboa Park parking page lists nonresident rates of $10 for up to four hours or $16 a day in Level 1 lots, enforced 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nonresidents get the first three hours free at the Lower Inspiration Point lot, which is farther out but connected by the free tram. Paid parking is scheduled to end on January 1, 2027, so check the page if you’re visiting around then.
• Free tram: A free tram runs daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. between the outer lots and the Central Mesa.
• Transit: MTS buses serve the park. Check the MTS trip planner for the current route from where you’re staying.
• Accessibility: Getting down to the lawn means taking uneven stone steps, so visitors with limited mobility may prefer to view the garden from the rim.

What to pair it with

Zoro Garden makes a good short stop between bigger sights on El Prado:

• Fleet Science Center and its planetarium dome are right next door. Our San Diego planetarium guide covers the shows.
• The Botanical Building and Lily Pond are a few minutes west along El Prado. The historic lath building reopened in December 2024 after a long restoration.
• Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden and the Desert Garden are across the Park Boulevard pedestrian bridge, about a five-minute walk. Our Balboa Park gardens guide walks through them all.
• Cabrillo Bridge, at the far west end of El Prado, is the classic entrance for photos of the California Tower.

Who it suits

Zoro Garden is a great stop for history buffs who like an offbeat story, families who need a shady break between museums, and photographers looking for a frame that isn’t the California Tower. It isn’t a destination on its own. Plan it as a 10- to 20-minute detour while you explore the Central Mesa, ideally on a warm, sunny morning when the butterflies are out.