Paradise Garden

Howard Finster, a Baptist preacher, began building a 'Plant Farm Museum' on four acres in Pennville, Georgia in 1961, eventually growing it into a sprawling folk-art environment of concrete walkways, mosaic sculptures, and a multi-story chapel built from bicycle parts, mirrors, tools, and found glass. A 1976 vision telling him to paint sacred art launched Finster's separate career as a self-taught painter, and Paradise Garden became a backdrop and gallery for that work as much as a construction project in its own right. Finster kept building and painting until his death in 2001. The nonprofit Paradise Garden Foundation now operates the site as a museum.