Yosemite National Park, Calif. -- When Yosemite-bound visitors emerge from their cars at Half Dome View for a first glimpse of distant splendors, they probably pay no attention to the scattering of boulders on their right. The chunks of granite look as if they've been there all along, a natural outcrop on the terrain along Big Oak Flat Road. But they only arrived this past summer, and each was placed with deliberate care. 'We wanted a divider to separate the viewing area from the parking, but we also wanted something organic to relate to the setting,' said Douglas Nelson of the landscape architecture firm Royston Hanamoto Alley & Abey (RHAA). 'Less of a formal design and more of a natural feel.' The boulders are just one element in the upgrade of the overlook, a project that includes a viewing area paved in concrete mixed with crushed local stone. The final touch comes next month, when park workers add plants grown from seeds and cuttings collected in the 1,169 square mile national park. The care shown this relatively small project is emblematic of something much larger: a design ethos for Yosemite where the overarching goal is that nothing new should make you look twice. 'The scenery is the focus,' said Randy Fong , an architect who is the park's chief of design. 'Whatever is built or developed should enhance the (Yosemite) experience, not call attention to itself.' Fitting in has been the stated goal all along. The Ahwahnee lodge with its castle-like stone walls -- Yosemite's most imposing yet revered structure -- was billed 'environmental' by the company that built it in 1927 . Even the thoroughly modern Yosemite Lodge was presented to the public in 1956 as a complex that would 'neither intrude upon this splendor nor seem to rival it in permanence.' These days, nothing is left to chance in a storied slice of nature that has been celebrated since the first tourist party explored in 1855 . Instead there's 'A Sense of Place: Design Guidelines for Yosemite Valley' from 2005, a hefty volume that goes so far as to spell out how log columns should be used for bus shelters in forested areas -- and how 'tight knots are desirable, similar to lodgepole pine with bark peeled.' Among the consultants on 'A Sense of Place' was George Homsey , a founder of EHDD, a firm distinguished by the thoughtful modernism of such efforts as the Monterey Bay Aquarium. But in a location like this, he suggests, deference is the key. 'You have to wear a different hat when you work in Yosemite. Buildings are secondary,' said Homsey, who's also on a team crafting park-wide guidelines to be released next year. 'It's all about the use of materials, the image you conjure up.' To some extent, the guidelines merely spell out a direction that has evolved by trial and error. There's no better example than a project that opened the year the guidelines were released, but was conceived a decade earlier: the approach to Yosemite Falls. The 2,425 foot cascade celebrated by John Muir as 'the wildest displays of her (nature's) power' attracts crowds that can exceed 10,000 people a day. But the experience was strictly stop-and-gawk, the falls reached by a straight asphalt path from a parking lot that could hold 50 tour buses at a time. No longer. The 56 acres at the base were recast in an ambitious, naturalistic design by Lawrence Halprin , a landscape architecture legend whose past work includes Sea Ranch and Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C. The straight trail now is mile-long loop, graded for almost full wheelchair access. A small amphitheater is formed from clustered boulders. The parking lot is gone, replaced by native vegetation and picnic tables. The restroom building resembles a ski chalet; the bus shelter has a rustic tone. Yet not all the moves are scenographic: the loop is paved in asphalt rather than patterned concrete because 'asphalt is more malleable,' Fong said. 'Concrete would have buckled and cracked.' This lavish attention to detail wouldn't occur without private donations that tap into the park's long hold on the American imagination. The transformation of the base of the falls had a $14.5 million budget; $13 million was provided by the Yosemite Fund, a nonprofit organization that has contributed $55 million to park programs and projects since it was founded in 1988 . Similarly, the Fund picked up the tab for the $800,000 redo of Half Dome Overlook. It also helped restore the luster of three other famed vantage points: Glacier Point, Olmsted Point and Tunnel View Overlook. All were designed by RHAA. Even when the Fund acts as developer, the park staff presents candidates for funding. It also is at the center of all design decisions. Tunnel View, for instance, makes room in the parking lot for a quartet of tour buses -- acceptance of the fact this is a near-obligatory first stop for tourists heading into the valley from points south. This perspective is crucial, according to fund president Mike Tollefson. 'It's a combination of protecting the resources while accentuating the feeling that you are in a special place,' said Tollefson, who served as Yosemite's superintendent for six years before moving to the fund in January. But care isn't lavished only on projects blessed by donors. Consider the 150-yard-long stretch of El Portal Road rebuilt last year by the Federal Highway Association because of erosion from the Merced River alongside it. Copies were made of the historic rock wall between the road and the river. Then -- to meet new roadway safety standards -- concrete panels replicating the original wall were placed over steel guard rails. The wall was hand-painted, with speckles to resemble granite and a final 'wash coat' to give the appearance of age. The two-lane roadway also was widened slightly, which meant cutting into the adjacent rocky cliff. The cliff's retaining wall consists of granite boulders installed one by one and reinforced with cement. Of course, anything less would likely bring criticism -- or lawsuits -- from watchdogs suspicious of any changes to the park. 'Everything the park service does, there's someone looking over their shoulder,' Homsey said. 'Yosemite is the mother church.' 