Omaha Exploration

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Parks and Green Spaces

Sam Mercer and Eva Aeppli’s Garden of the Zodiac

Omaha Exploration

1052 Howard Street, Eva Aeppli, Garden of the Zodiac, Garden of the Zodiac Gallery, Indian Oven Restaurant, Old Market Passageway, Sam Mercer, The Old Market

August 10, 2023

Sam Mercer conceived of a private garden in the middle of the Old Market while traveling from his home in Paris to Omaha in 1985. Mercer was a lawyer by trade and while he never lived in Omaha permanently, he dedicated himself to preserving the city’s historic warehouse district that turned into a produce market and finally the entertainment district we recognize today. It was, after all, his family that owned many of the buildings in the area.

Entrance to the Old Market Passageway where the Garden of the Zodiac is located.

The garden was to sit directly behind the Indian Oven restaurant at 1052 Howard Street on a gravel lot that was occupied by parked cars and trash bins. The hidden garden would feature a cloister in addition to 22 bronze sculptures that were exhibited in Switzerland. The sculptures were created by his wife, Swiss artist Eva Aeppli. Aeppli was living in Paris when she met Mercer. After marrying in 1962, they returned to Omaha on occasion, during which time she turned her focus to astrology, producing bronze busts dedicated to the zodiac and the planets.

Another view of the gold leaf covered heads.

Opened in 1987, the garden is only accessed by going into the Old Market Passageway and then entering the Garden of the Zodiac Gallery. As you enter the garden, you step onto a covered brick walkway. Along the walkway are 12 walls representing the signs of the Zodiac. In front of each wall is a bronze head that symbolizes the constellations.

Along the walkway are 12 walls representing the signs of the Zodiac. In front of each wall is a bronze head that symbolizes the constellations.

As you look further inward from the walkway, you see a garden that is open to the sky. Within the garden are 10 heads covered in gold leaf. These heads represent the planets, the Sun and the Moon. They are carefully placed in the alignment they held at the time of the sculptor’s birth on May 2, 1925. In the center of it all, surrounded by plants, flowers, vines and herbs, is a small pond that represents Earth.

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