A New Year’s invitation
Mal Cooper built the house at Montecollum in 1980, with a round central building, four wings and reflecting ponds designed by the architect Edwin Kingsbury. At the end of 1985 Naren King was invited to a New Year’s Eve celebration there. He went on to found Crystalight, a business importing natural crystals, and in 1986 the King family took over the property.
Planting the gardens
The first trees went into the ground in 1986, on land that had been cleared for grazing and banana farming, and rose quartz along the paths helped set the gardens’ character. From 2005 Naren and Sono King developed the gardens in earnest, with the whole collection of a local nursery and the help of its owner.
Peace and crystals
In early 2010 the family visited Dharamsala, and the Dalai Lama gave his blessing to a Kalachakra stupa for world peace. Built with the Gyuto Monks of Tibet, it opened on 27 October 2012, when almost 1,500 people came. In 2016 a journey to Uruguay and Brazil brought back the Crystal Guardians and the Enchanted Cave.



