Carmelite Monastery to follow Bahai Temple

Garden will span an area of three hectares and will feature numerousstatues, religious artifacts and a large amphitheatre overlooking aspectacular view Ofer Petersburg Published: 02.19.07, 19:32 / Israel Travel<http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3087,00.html>

The order of the Carmelite Monastery in Haifa, Israel, a 19th-centurymonastery located on the slopes of Mount Carmel, became envious of thebeautiful Bahai Temple gardens in Haifa and decided to follow suit bycreating its own. The Carmelite gardens will be built on the mountainside of the Stella Marisneighborhood, where a military army based was located until recently. Thegarden will span an area of three hectares and will feature numerousstatues, religious artifacts and a large amphitheatre overlooking aspectacular view. As in the Bahai gardens, the Carmelite garden will also have a visitors'center that will be open to the public. An American landscape architect washired to design the garden. The cost for building the garden is estimated $200 million, while theinitial investment totals $50 million. This week, an official from the Carmelite Monastery submitted a buildingplan to the district planning committee for a complex in the Stella Marisneighborhood comprising 350 housing units, an elderly citizen's home, asmall commercial center and a hotel comprising 100 rooms. The apartments will not only be sold to Carmelite community members, but tothe general public. Revenues incurred from the sales of the apartments willbe used for funding the Carmelite garden. The Carmelite Order is an enclosed Catholic order founded in the 12thcentury by a group of Europeans led by a man commonly called Saint Bertoldon Mount Carmel, Israel, where the order received its name.