Sholom Park

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Sidney Colen, a local developer, made it and gave it away. The name is the Hebrew word for peace and the whole design follows from that: the park was laid out as a place for anyone looking for quiet, and it is run on that principle rather than as an events venue. More than two miles of paved path wind through it, all of it accessible to wheelchairs. There is a formal garden walk, a rose garden, an open prairie section, olive trees, heavy plantings of azaleas that come out in late winter, a walking labyrinth and a pond stocked with koi. The planting is arranged so that something is always in flower and so that each turn of the path closes off the last view, which is why forty-four acres feels larger on foot than it reads on paper. It costs nothing to enter and there is no gift shop or cafe. People come here to walk, sit and read rather than to be entertained