Spreckels and former mayor William Alvord, who offered it as a gift to the City of San Francisco for use in Golden Gate Park, which was then under construction. The Parks Commission accepted the gift and in 1878 hired Lord & Burnham to supervise the erection of the structure. It is believed that the glass for the second conservatory may have been used in other structures in the park. Records indicate the construction costs were roughly $30,000. The specific architect of the greenhouse is not known for certain. The San Francisco Public Library holds a document entitled Information about Samuel Charles Bugbee, written by a relative, Arthur S. Bugbee, in 1957. It indicates that the architect Samual Charles Bugbee, whose works included the homes of Leland Stanford and Charles Crocker and the Mendocino Presbyterian Church, may also have designed the Conservatory of Flowers. Once open in April 1879, the Conservatory contained a large variety of rare and tropical plants, including a giant water lily (Victoria regia), which at the time was the only known specimen in the United States. Wood vs. iron The Conservatory of Flowers was constructed of wood rather than iron, as was common in the later part of the 19th century, because wood was plentiful in the west. Cast-iron greenhouses do not appear to have been widely manufactured in America until the 1880s. Materials analysis suggests that the structural wooden members of the Conservatory greenhouse were constructed of indigenous California Coast Redwood. Other known American wood conservatories of this period included Lyndhurst in Tarrytown, New York. The Lyndhurst Conservatory, constructed in 1869 of wood by the estate's first owner George Merritt, was destroyed by fire in 1880. The estate's second owner, Jay Gould, rebuilt the conservatory in 1881, hiring the local firm of Lord & Burnham – which had moved from upstate New York to Irvington, New York to be closer to its Hudson Valley clientele ,to manufacture his greenhouse. The 1881 Lord & Burnham structure was composed primarily of cast iron and glass. The Gould Conservatory at Lyndhurst is credited with being the first conservatory of iron in the United States and with inspiring subsequent structures of the same material. After their success with the Gould Conservatory of 1881, Lord & Burnham and other conservatory manufacturers apparently produced few large conservatories of wood. The Conservatory is now the oldest wood-and-glass conservatory in North America open to