The bucolical gardens of Topotepuy are the nocturnal refuge of Caracas’ birds. They cover roughly eight acres of gardens, of which two acres correspond to a cloudy wood, known as the «Bosque de la Virgen». In 1959, William Phelps Jr. (a Venezuelan citizen) and his wife Katherine (an Australian citizen) bough the lot to build a weekend house and dedicate themselves to ornithology, gardening and ecology and conservation. During many trips throughout the country, the Phelps were able to set up the largest private collection of birds in Latin America (the Phelps collection), and wrote many works on the Venezuelan bird fauna, where they describe 200 new birds for science. In the magnificent gardens one may observe seven different species of hummingbirds (tucusitos). The location named honoring the Tepuy Mountains, have a didactic feature, on top of promoting biological and envi-ronmental studies. It has several areas: the cloudy wood; Billy and Kathy Phelps’ conservatory; hydroponic plant-ing and composting systems; the aquatic garden; the herbs’ and usual plants’ garden; the xerophytes’ garden; the rose garden: the bromeliads and orchids greenhouse. The first house built was a minimal module prefabricated by the couple; later on a larger house was built, with chiqui-chiqui (a vegetal fiber typical of the churuata houses) roof-ing, yet maintaining the same concept of minimal housing.