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Berkeley’s insatiable appetite for new buildings is about to claim one of its most charming victims, a Gilman Street garden of earthly delights. 

Though there’s little to see from the road other than a fence shrouded with greenery, visitors who chance upon A New Leaf Gallery will discover a beautifully crafted landscape, filled with charming surprises and spectacular sculpture. 

The grounds are carefully laid out along a serpentine path paved with stones and lined with trees and other plantings. Grapestakes and partial walls create settings within settings, each a unique setting for a unique artwork. 

While it may be one of Berkeley’s best-kept secrets, the outdoor gallery at 1286 Gilman has earned an international reputation and draws visitors from across the country—in part because the vast inventory of artists and works they offer on the Internet at www.sculpturesite.com. 

“People have been reacting with a sense of grief to word of the move,” said Brigitte Micmacker, who founded the gallery 15 years ago with spouse/sculptor John Denning. “Neighbors have been telling us that they can’t imagine living without it, and we’re discovering that it’s become intensely involved as a part of people’s lives.” 

But the gallery owners had little choice. The man who owns the 90-foot-by-100-foot lot at Gilman and Curtis streets notified them six months ago that he intended to build on the property, the long-time site of the nursery memorialized in the greenhouse-turned-gallery at the rear of the lot. 

“The idea originally was to separate the back 40 feet of the lot and build a three-story building with two stories of apartments above. We would have had to share the ground floor with two other retail businesses and we would have had a much smaller outdoor space,” Micmacker said. 

“And even then we would have had to move to another location off-site for a year during construction.” 

With a move already mandated and a long closing in the offing, it seemed logical to make a permanent move and keep the closure to a minimum. 

They found what they were looking for during their first foraging expedition across the Bay Bridge. 

Micmacker, Denning and gallery director and full partner Stephanie Everett will be moving to a radically new setting in San Francisco in April, when they open at 201 Third St., a block from the Museum of Modern Art and across the street from Moscone Center. 

“It’s an indoor gallery, so we won’t have the garden feeling we have here,” she said. 

The gallery’s unique Berkeley setting has made A New Leaf a favorite of both art students and gardeners.  

“Teachers send students here all the time,” said Micmacker. “A high school ceramics class comes every year, and we regularly have other classes coming through, from first-graders to graduate students.” 

Gardening and horticultural classes also pay frequent visits, as do gardening clubs, drawn by the immaculately laid out and carefully tended plantings and landscaping that took five years to create. 

“It all has to go. The trees, the rocks, everything. The landlord wants the land restored to the way it was when we first rented it,” Micmacker said. 

The gallery’s’ prices aren’t for the faint of wallet. Though many of the works in the current, final showing are reduced by 10 to 25 percent, that still leaves prices ranging from just over $500 to more than $32,000. 

That top price isn’t the highest aficionados can pay. Their website features truly monumental works commissioned from some of the 100-plus artists the gallery currently represents. 

Some of the most interesting works now on display—including the most expensive—are Denning’s human figures, including the remarkable “Poet,” a life-size cast metal figure with a hollowed-out chest pierced by a hummingbird. 

The gallery opened its gate in Berkeley on June 1, 1990, and will close in April, as soon as their new quarters are ready. For hard core fans, a hand-bound linen hardcover photographic book—A New Leaf Gallery: The Berkeley Years (1990-2005)—is in the offing. Dedicated and signed copies will be available for $300, $250 with advance payment. 

The gallery remains open until a closing date is fixed. Hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends, “rain or shine,” Micmacker adds.Ë