Itty-Bitty Park Door Opens to a World of Mystery

(Image Credit: Erica Reh / RichmondSFBlog.com)

People strolling through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco can channel the rabbit-chasing Alice by opening a mysterious tiny door found at the base of a tree that some speculate leads to a mystical world like Wonderland.

"When I see the door, I think of the word 'delight,'" Sarah Bacon, editor of the Richmond District Blog, said. "When people talk about walking by it, it makes their day a little happier because it's unexpected."

The miniature door sits at the base of a tree in the concourse of the park, leaving people to wonder who installed it.

"I received the photos from a reader and posted them up there thinking this is cute and interesting in a local park, and it got picked up by blogs and websites," she said.

Visitors have placed notes inside, hoping they'll be read by whatever creature lives in the hole. Some have speculated it is a gateway to a "far off fairy land," Bacon said.

Bacon posted the photos, along with a brief blog post, and said she received four-to-five times more traffic on her site­ than ever before.

"I'm just a local neighborhood blog, but I received about 16,000 hits that day," she said. "For me, it's huge and I feel this really captured people's imaginations."

The tree is positioned in the park among 40 others, but Bacon's blog does not specify the location, which adds to the mystery, she said.

"When the person sent me the photos, they gave me exact locations, but when you go to the park, I thought it would be fun for families to go out together and look for the tree," she said.

"It has a lot of parents and kids excited. There are so many theories as to who put the door there, but I hope it stays a mystery."