Listed here are brief highlights from the many interesting and beautiful 2008 Historic Garden Week in Virginia tours. For more information, please access the tour name on the Schedule page of this website.
Come Celebrate our 75th Anniversary! April 19-27, 2008
For Historic Garden Week’s 75th anniversary, members of The Garden Club of Virginia have produced a wonderful array of tours, from the mountains to the seashore, at the peak of Virginia’s springtime splendor. Approximately 200 generous homeowners will open their beautiful houses and gardens throughout the week to benefit The Club’s historic restoration programs. Properties on tour range in age from the late-17th century through the early 21st and represent the best of their respective periods. Each home will be filled with exquisite flower arrangements created by Garden Club of Virginia members, incorporating flowers and foliage native to the state.
WAR STORIES, HISTORY AND GHOSTLY TALES
IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK
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As always, Historic Garden Week in Virginia tours this year will feature interesting properties rich in history and lore.
The April 19 event in Alexandria’s charming Old Town district opens a beautiful 1802 mansion where Robert E. Lee is said to have accepted command of the Confederate Army of Virginia at the onset of the Civil War. Nearby, the classic Georgian “Craik House” was built in 1787 for Dr. James Craik, George Washington’s Revolutionary War private secretary and physician. Following the custom of the day, the doctor maintained his medical practice in the front two rooms of his house. Down the street, a handsome late-18th century townhouse features an original Gilbert Stuart painting of George Washington, lit by a fabulous Baccarat chandelier. In addition to six private historic houses and gardens open for this tour, ticket-holders may visit six historic landmarks free of charge on April 19, including George Washington’s Mount Vernon—a very special bargain for Garden Week guests. Mount Vernon’s bowling green is a restoration project of The Garden Club of Virginia with funding from Historic Garden Week tours.
Two of the fine old estates featured on the Fauquier and Loudoun tour in the beautiful Middleburg countryside on April 20 and 21 served as places of refuge for Civil War officers as battles raged in the region. Legendary Confederate cavalry leader Col. John Mosby was gravely wounded in a nearby battle and brought surreptitiously at night by ox cart to Rockburn Farm, where he was nursed back to health. One of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s sons is said to have hidden from Union soldiers in an outbuilding at Lee Hall, an 1818 farmhouse surrounded by lovely gardens, historic outbuildings and a scenic sycamore-lined driveway. This fascinating tour in Virginia’s renowned hunt country is sponsored by the Fauquier and Loudoun Garden Club and winds along picturesque country lanes bordered by spacious stables and grazing Thoroughbreds.
Piedmont, one of five handsome country estates open for the Albemarle/Charlottesville tours on April 20 and 21, contains boxwood bushes that are said to be descended from a trade with neighbor Thomas Jefferson for a wagonload of red clover seed and corn. Standing at the foot of Afton Mountain in western Albemarle County, Piedmont is importantfor its unbroken association with the Wallace family of Scottish ancestry who were among the area’s earliest settlers. William Wallace, one of the first pioneers to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains from the west into the county, arrived about 1734, and nearly 275 years later, the farm is still owned by his descendants, making it one of the few county properties remaining in the ownership of the same family who patented it in the Colonial period. Piedmont is among five exceptional properties open in the Greenwood district of Albemarle, long known for its pastoral beauty, Blue Ridge Mountain views and substantial farm estates graced by some of Virginia’s most beautiful country houses. Each of the properties open this year on the “Country Homes and Gardens Tour” is listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places, as is the Morven Estate, open in Albemarle County on April 19, weather permitting. The magnificent gardens of this 1820 mansion have been a highlight of Historic Garden Week since 1933.
One of the historic houses featured on the April 22 Petersburg tour contains a brass plaque prominently affixed to its front façade in honor of the woman credited with originating Memorial Day. Nora F.M. Davidson began the Memorial Day movement by serving as a charter member of the Ladies Memorial Association, a group honoring the Civil War soldiers fallen on Petersburg’s battlefields. The 175-year-old mansion of 3,000 square feet has been beautifully restored and is one of the landmark houses in Petersburg’s admirable reclamation of fine antebellum properties near the riverfront. On historic South Adams Street, an 1832 townhouse features Civil War and World War II collectibles, along with a prize collection of antique Japanese dolls. While exploring the elegant interiors of these handsome old homes, be sure to take time to stroll through the well-appointed city gardens.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono were the owners at one time of Auburn Plantation, built in 1824 and featured on the Gloucester-Mathews tour on April 26. The ghost of Mary Eliza Tabb is said to appear occasionally at the impressive Federal-style mansion on the banks of the North River. Miss Tabb died after falling down the curving staircase in the hallway, and her satin slippers are on display in the front hall. After passing through various owners, including the Lennons, Auburn was purchased by the current owners in 1997 and updated magnificently for 21st century living, including a fabulous wine cellar with masonry from the Coliseum in Rome and “Hokie stone,” the limestone used in buildings at Virginia Tech. Auburn is among five premier coastal properties open for this excellent tour in Virginia’s historic Tidewater region.
As a young man, George Washington surveyed the beautiful farmlands open in Clarke County on April 26 and 27 by the Winchester-Clarke Garden Club. Still one of the remaining wonderful, scenic areas of Northern Virginia yet unspoiled by over-development, the tour neighborhood includes properties dating to an original crown grant to Lord Thomas Fairfax. Houses open span the centuries from the 18th and 19th through the late-20th. From the porches of these exceptional homes, enjoy unparalleled views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River, ample barns, and fine Thoroughbreds in green pastures.
GLORIOUS GARDENS: FROM THE SEASHORE TO THE HIGHLANDS
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For more than seven decades, Historic Garden Week has opened some of Virginia’s most beautiful gardens for public enjoyment. This year is no exception.
Classic gardens with splendid views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and verdant pastures will be featured on the April 19 tour in Orange County, “Homes and Gardens Across the Ages in Montpelier Hunt Country.” One of the venues will be the Annie duPont Garden at historic Montpelier, home of James and Dolley Madison in the early 19th century and later home to the noted DuPont family in the early 20th century. This beautiful formal garden at Montpelier was a restoration project of The Garden Club of Virginia in 1990 with funding from Garden Week tours and is being showcased this year to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Historic Garden Week in Virginia. Gardens at different properties open for the tour are the products of many outstanding landscape designers, from President Madison’s French gardener to noted landscape architect Charles F. Gillette a century later. Houses on tour include an impressive 1843 Greek Revival residence, a 1930s cottage built for Marion duPont Scott’s accomplished steeplechase jockey and trainer (also a talented sculptor and botanist), a handsome 1909 Colonial Revival manor built for Annie duPont’s son near Montpelier, and a stunning new stone and stucco contemporary residence with creative new landscaping.
Also on April 19, in another part of the state, at Chase City in Virginia’s rolling Piedmont plains, the MacCallum More Museum and Gardens feature five acres of maintained gardens, arboretum and wildlife habitat with a memorial white garden, a pink garden, a rose garden and other plants and flowers, amid a collection of antique statues and fountains acquired in the early 20th century by a Naval Commander during his worldwide journeys. In addition to housing an outstanding collection of Native American artifacts in the Museum dating from 9500 BC, the Gardens are a Certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat and an official site on the Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail.
Gardens in the Colonial Williamsburg Historic District will be filled with spring color for the Williamsburg-area tour on April 22. Escorted walking tours of delightful 18th century-style gardens in the west section of Colonial Williamsburg will highlight period annuals, perennials and herbs. Participants will glean information on garden design, landscape details and “heirloom” flowers. In addition to visits to the recreated gardens, the tour opens two fine old restored properties in the historic area and three attractive 20th century homes in the Walnut Hills residential district.
With ideal weather conditions, a sea of daffodils will greet guests of the April 23 tour in the Harrisonburg area countryside. More than 250 varieties of daffodils surround an old stone house on a hillside with panoramic views of pastures, mountains and valleys. The house was relocated and reconstructed from one built in 1791, with original woodwork and exceptional antique furnishings. Also on this tour is a stately 1845 manor house with ancient trees, perennial gardens and old English and American boxwood. The extensive daffodil garden here is maintained by the state Chairman of the Daffodil Committee for The Garden Club of Virginia, who has filled her landscape with these sunny, spring-flowering bulbs. Other landscapes on this tour include a fantasy castle garden with a “Princess Room,” a multi-terraced garden with a spectacular backdrop of the Massanutten Mountains, and a hilltop setting with sweeping views of the Wintergreen Resort.
The signature influence of renowned landscape architect Charles F. Gillette is evident throughout the upscale Windsor Farms neighborhood, site of Richmond’s April 24 event. Gillette, one of the pre-eminent American landscape designers of the 20th century, created many of the beautiful gardens in this area, including several of those on tour that day. At Agecroft Hall, a reconstructed late-15th century English manor house, Gillette designed a landscape reminiscent of the Pond Garden at Hampton Court Palace near London. Agecroft Hall is the site of the Garden Day luncheon on April 24, and its outstanding gardens will be filled with splendid springtime color for visitors to enjoy.
During the days of the three Richmond Garden Week tours, April 22, 23 and 24, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden will have extended hours until 7 p.m. Guests are invited to drop in and chat with Garden hosts who can answer questions and talk about “very Virginia” plants. The Garden will offer wine-tasting featuring Virginia wines, and the Garden Café will serve dinner. Please visit www.lewisginter.org for more information about the glorious landscapes and special programs offered by this premier botanical garden. The Grace Arents section of the Garden is a restoration project of The Garden Club of Virginia with funding from Historic Garden Week tours.
SCENIC VISTAS OF CREEKS, RIVERS AND COASTS
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Historic Garden Week tours are located in some of Virginia’s most picturesque areas, from the Eastern Shore to the Allegheny Mountains. Houses and gardens open in the Tidewater area have particularly beautiful views of rivers and coasts.
This year, the Virginia Beach tour on April 23 features attractive, restored beach cottages and gardens in the city’s North End, all within a stone’s throw of the Atlantic Ocean and several with spectacular seaside vistas. The tour opens eight houses and cottages built between the 1920s and 1950s, all updated with fresh, bright décor and recent renovations. Visitors are also encouraged to see the Atlantic Wildfowl Heritage Museum (the old de Witt cottage built in 1895), the oldest remaining structure on the oceanfront. Gardens included on the tour are planted with year-round interest and color, to withstand coastal conditions. Holders of this April 23 Garden Day ticket may also visit free of charge several museum homes of great historic interest in the area, dating to the 17th and 18th centuries, where refreshments will be served, docents in period costumes will discuss the historic uses of herbs, and musicians will play dulcimers.
Houses and pool houses in and around the town of Irvington, bordering some of Virginia’s most scenic waterways, will be featured during the Northern Neck Garden Club’s tour on April 23. Distinctive properties with magnificent water views of the Rappahannock River and Carter’s Creek range in age from the Victorian era to brand-new in 2006. One of the delightful in-town properties is an 1890 school house, updated for modern living.
A fascinating tour on Virginia’s Eastern Shore on April 26 showcases six Northampton County properties from the 18th through the 21st centuries, all hidden treasures sited within a whisper or a shout of the coastline. Visitors will travel through time from outstanding examples of Colonial and Federal period architecture to four striking recent designs in wonderfully contrasting styles.
CHARMING HOUSES IN QUINTISSENTIAL SOUTHERN TOWNS
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Several Historic Garden Week tours take place in charming, quintessential Southern towns across Virginia.
Vintage homes along the shady streets of the college town of Ashland will be open on April 19. Titled “Just off the Tracks,” to note that a railroad track runs right through the neighborhood, the tour features Classical Revival, Colonial Revival and Georgian Revival homes built generations ago and updated for current family living. A 1906 medical office, now an appealing guest cottage, will display antique medical instruments owned by the Carter family of physicians.
Also on April 19, the Franklin Garden Club presents a tour in the Courtland area, in and around the village initially known as Jerusalem, Virginia. Builders of the antebellum Rochelle-Prince House in Courtland were part of a family dating from the 17th century in this area. Other homes open in this rural part of Southeastern Virginia contain a variety of antiques and interesting collections, including Depression glassware, hand-stitched samplers, signature birdhouses and works by local artists.
Known as “The City of Seven Hills,” Lynchburg will be the site of a tour on April 22 featuring some of this Piedmont city’s finest houses of the 20th century. Types of architecture range from an expansive 1920s brick cottage, built in the distinctive American bungalow style, to Georgian-inspired houses and a newly completed classical country French manor home. After touring the tastefully designed interiors, guests may wander through lovely hillside gardens featuring statuary, fountains, colorful spring blooms and mature shade trees. Also of interest is a recently restored 200-year-old landscape with more than 200 antique roses, medicinal herbs, a water garden, a shrub garden, antique daffodils, and hundreds of native and ornamental trees. A Virginia Historic Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places, the Old City Cemetery is open to the public without charge.
While located within the city limits of Richmond, the Ginter Park neighborhood has the feel of an old-fashioned Southern town, with its wide, shady streets and spacious houses enjoyed by generations of families. This pleasant neighborhood will be highlighted on the April 23 tour, co-sponsored by Historic Richmond Foundation and The Garden Club of Virginia. The area was conceived and planned in the late-19th century by wealthy industrialist and entrepreneur Major Lewis W. Ginter and was one of Richmond’s first planned communities. The April 23 event takes visitors on a leisurely walking tour along Seminary Avenue in the heart of the neighborhood, which has retained most of its ambiance of the turn of the last century with its old trees, large lawns and a wealth of architecturally diverse homes, renewed for 21st century living. While in the area, be sure to visit the wonderful Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, inspired by Major Ginter and his niece Grace Arents (www.lewisginter.org).
The theme of the Brunswick Garden Club’s tour in Emporia and Purdy on April 26 is “1813 to Now,” beginning with a house constructed between 1813 and 1825. The recently restored Alexander Watson Batte house is listed in the National Register of Historic Landmarks and the Virginia Landmarks Register and is shaded by a large pecan tree, more than 200 years old and one of the oldest in the state. The tour also features a Williamsburg-style house, the 1910 twenty-room manor, “Greycroft,” and a log home surrounded by colorful woodland gardens, among other interesting properties.
OUTSTANDING ANTIQUES AND COLLECTIONS
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Fine works of art and outstanding American, European and Asian antiques, along with beautiful displays of porcelain and other collectibles, will be found throughout the Historic Garden Week tour homes this year.
One of the pieces in an extensive art collection displayed in an elegant 19th century townhouse, open for the Old Town Alexandria tour on April 19, is an original sculpture by 20th century artist Frederick Hart, who created the bronze sculpture of the three young American soldiers that stand guard over the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. Other artists featured in the house include Monestier, Bonnie Shelor, Ann Barbieri and Hans Erni, Switzerland’s greatest 20th century Expressionists.
One of the region’s finest private collections of horse and sporting artwork will be displayed at a country estate open for the April 22 tour in Caroline County, sponsored by the Rappahannock Valley Garden Club of Fredericksburg. At one rural property, a 2,000-square-foot room which is used to host hunt breakfasts and other hunt functions is named for Sir Alfred Munnings, the great British sporting artist whose art adorns the walls. The private collection of foxhunting art, both here and in the adjacent private home, is unrivaled in the area. Hampton Manor, a grand 1852 Classical Revival mansion also featured on this tour, served as a refugee for displaced families during the Civil War and also as a refuge for some displaced artists during World War II. The owner, a wealthy niece of J.P. Morgan, created an informal artists’ colony there, and novelists Henry Miller, Anais Nin and artist Salvador Dali spent time there. The “Dali Room” in the basement display one of his original mannequins which was found in the attic.
Richmond’s April 22 tour in the charming Hampton Gardens neighborhood features six spacious houses of varying architectural styles, including Georgian and Federal Revival, Tudor, Norman and 19th century Italianate cottage. All are filled with fine antiques, artwork and special collections. Outstanding porcelain collections include Imari, Old Paris, Staffordshire, Rockingham, Mottaheddah, Canton, old English, Herend and Beatrix Potter. Houses date from 1883 to the mid-20th century, and all have been renovated and redecorated with a sophisticated flair.
Houses in the secluded Algonquin Park neighborhood (Norfolk tour, April 24) contain a variety of fascinating collections, including railroad art and memorabilia, Oglala Sioux Indian relics, Western Indian clay pots, fine American antiques, horn goblets, broadaxes and even decorated cuspidors. Originally developed in the early 1920s, the tranquil Algonquin Park area features a web of shaded lanes along homes of numerous architectural designs and sizes, many with water views of the Lafayette River and creeks that surround this lush and private peninsula.
Owners of properties open on the April 26 tour on Virginia’s Eastern Shore are particularly avid collectors of American antiques, beautifully displayed in restored historic homes and in creatively designed modern coastal residences. Don’t miss Eyre Hall, a perennial favorite on this tour, owned by the 8th generation descendant of its original builder, housing splendid family pieces dating to the early 18th century, and surrounded by exquisite historic gardens. The stair hall is hung with the original French paper, “Rives du Bosphore,” painted by Dufour in 1815. The extensive gardens are among the oldest in the country, dating to about 1800, and are enclosed by a venerable wall of brick purportedly brought as ballast from English ships.
Also on April 26, the tour in the Lexington area features two handsome 19th century houses within this historic city and two contemporary late-20th century homes in the countryside with sweeping views of the surrounding mountains and valleys. Varied collections displayed in the homes include exquisite Japanese Imari porcelains, Empire period furnishings, 19th century beverage jugs and food crocks, delightful needlepoint works of three generations, Hudson Valley paintings and photographs, wooden hunting decoys, early Virginia farm and dairy implements, and 1836 maps showing the reservations allocated to Native American tribes who were relocated to the Western and Oklahoma Territory. One of the homeowners, Kate Buford, is the author of several books, including biographies of actor Burt Lancaster and athlete Jim Thorpe. Old posters of these two famous men can be seen in several rooms, in addition to a letter to Ms. Buford from film star Katherine Hepburn.
FROM COLONIAL TO ART MODERNE: A RICH VARIETY OF ARCHITECTURAL STYLES
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From Alexandria in the north to Danville on the southern border, Historic Garden Week tours open homes and gardens from every period of Virginia history, reflecting the rich variety of architecture found throughout the Commonwealth.
The interesting mix of properties featured on the April 20 tour in Chatham includes an early 1900s church with antique woodwork converted into a modern residence; a brand-new 6,000-square-foot house, the center of a Black Angus cattle farm, with magnificent rural views and a 12-horse stable; an early 20th century streetcar, turned diner, turned Visitor Center, on the National Register of Historic Places among Virginia Diners; and a gracious 1915 country doctor’s home of white clapboard, with restored antebellum servants’ quarters and other historic outbuildings.
While filming a television special program about the owners’ kitchen, HGTV found a house in Great Falls so appealing that they filmed two more shows highlighting its comfort and livability. The family farmhouse has been creatively renovated, with a two-story, five-stall barn nearby for the family’s horses. This tour of spacious houses and gardens in Great Falls will be held on April 22 by the Fairfax Garden Club. Another property featured that day is a striking contemporary house in the heart of a beautifully landscaped five-acre garden with towering trees, goldfish pond, pool house with full amenities, and a garage housing a collection of luxury cars, including Maseratis, Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Another residence on this tour features décor inspired by the Inn of Five Graces in Sante Fe, New Mexico, with a wonderful blend of antique Tibetan woods and artifacts and Southwestern textiles. Several of the homes contain fine collections of contemporary art, including works by Washington Color School artists.
Westover Plantation, open for Historic Garden Week since the very first tour in 1929, is one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in America. The stately plantation house was built in 1730 by William Byrd II, author, diarist, colonial leader and founder of the cities of Richmond and Petersburg. The interior, normally closed to the public, is noted for the beautiful proportions of the rooms, ornately carved ceilings, the detail of the cornice and stairway, and an unusual black mantelpiece. Westover’s lovely grounds overlooking the historic James River and impressive interior will be open for touring on April 24, 25 and 26.
Residences featured on the April 24 tour in Danville range from a classic 1885 Queen Anne, filled with antiques, to a newly renovated suite in the old brick Lindsay Lofts for Urban Living, formerly known as the landmark Link-Watson building in the historic Warehouse District. The upscale loft dwellings represent the vision of a 12th-generation Virginian who has been designing buildings for 40 years and who is opening his suite and garden patio to visitors for the Garden Week tour. The tour also features handsome homes from the mid-20th century, beautifully decorated and brought up to date.
Richmond’s premier tour on April 24 takes visitors to a grand neighborhood originally designed in the early part of the last century to resemble an English village. Eight outstanding houses and gardens will be featured on this walking tour in Windsor Farms. English-themed architecture ranges from Tudor and Georgian Revival to a splendid manor house built with authentic English elements from the 16th and 17th centuries. Historic features of the Garland mansion include woodcarvings more than 400 years old, extraordinary examples of linen-fold woodwork, a heavy oak door and oriel window taken from a monastery, multi-paned tinted windows, and massive fireplaces, one with a 1606 date, with limestone surrounds, elaborate paneling and mantelpieces imported from Tudor buildings. Family antiques blend with pieces collected by the owners, including a fine assortment of old silver. A slate terrace outside overlooks an elliptical swimming pool and gardens designed by noted landscape architect Charles F. Gillette.
While in the Richmond area, Garden Week guests are also encouraged to visit Tuckahoe Plantation, boyhood home of Thomas Jefferson, set amid 649 scenic acres along the historic James River. Surrounded by beautiful gardens, Tuckahoe has miraculously survived for nearly 275 years and is reputed to have the most complete 18th century plantation layout in North America. The distinguished house will be officially open for Garden Day touring on April 22, and the gardens will be open for self-guided walks on April 23 and 24, with a tour inside the house for an additional fee. For additional information, please access Richmond on the Schedule page of this website, end of April 24 tour details, or the listing for James River Plantations, Lower North Side, where Westover Plantation is also noted.
On April 25, members of the Garden Club of the Middle Peninsula will present a picture of Tidewater architecture from the 17th century to the 21st in their tour in Middlesex County, titled “Times and Tides.” The oldest structure, Wilton, dates to the family of William Churchill, who emigrated from England in 1674. This fine manor house on the banks of the Piankatank River was once the center of a 6,000-acre plantation and is still largely in its original state, including wonderful interior woodwork and an exterior of precise Flemish bond brickwork with a gambrel hipped roof. After passing through approximately eight families, Wilton is now owned by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia antiquities. The APVA is looking for a private owner who will restore this “crown jewel” of Middlesex County architecture. Completing the timeline of properties from the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries on tour is an impressive brick home built in 2006 with a scenic view of Wilton Creek. In a garden behind a 1742 tavern, also featured on this tour, Patrick Henry is reported to have made a speech under the old walnut tree in the backyard.
Properties open for the suburban tour in the hillside Shenandoah Valley city of Staunton include handsome brick residences of the early to mid-20th century, built in the Georgial Revival and Classical Revival styles. There is even a touch of Frank Lloyd Wright in a newly constructed house, borrowing from the Art Moderne style of the late-1940s. These exceptional homes, surrounded by mature trees and gardens, are open for Staunton’s April 26 Garden Week tour.
SPECIAL EVENTS PLANNED DURING TOURS
A number of Garden Week tours will offer demonstrations and other educational activities on a variety of horticultural, historic and other interesting topics.
Information about geothermal energy as an alternative heat and cooling source and its positive impact on the environment will be presented at one of the houses open for the April 19 tour in Portsmouth’s older “Glensheallah” neighborhood. Environmentally conscious owners of a 1924 Italianate residence with 12-foot ceilings have recently installed a geothermal heating and cooling system that saves 75 percent on energy consumption. This vintage home is one of seven attractive houses and gardens open on a peninsula on the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River. Interesting collections, distinctive wall-painting techniques, and lovely antiques characterize the interiors of these updated houses from the first half of the 20th century.
Organizers of the tours in the Albemarle/Charlottesville area have planned a number of interesting discussions and displays for Historic Garden Week. At the Piedmont estate, owned by the descendants of early Scottish settlers, Barbara Wallace Chakmakian, owner of the estate, and K. Edward Lay, the Cary D. Langhorne Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Virginia, will conduct a lecture and conversation, “The Early Presbyterian Church in Albemarle and the Wallace Family at Piedmont” on April 21. In Charlottesville, at the University of Virginia art Museum, a “Flowers Interpret Art” show and buffet dinner will be held, also on April 21.
On April 22, guided tours (free of charge) will be held of the Thomas Jefferson-designed Pavilion Gardens and Homes at the University of Virginia. The gardens are among the crown jewels of restoration projects by The Garden Club of Virginia with funding from Historic Garden Week tours. Also free of charge will be a special exhibition at UVA at the Mary and David Harrison Institute for American History, Literature and Culture and the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. At 2 p.m. on April 22, William D. Rieley, landscape architect for The Garden Club of Virginia, will give an illustrated talk there about The GCV’s work on the restoration of the Academical Village’s lovely gardens.
On April 22 and April 24, in honor of Historic Garden Week, Monticello horticulturists will present illustrated talks on Thomas Jefferson as Gardener and on the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants. For more information, access the Albemarle-Charlottesville tour copy, attached to the Schedule page of this website.
A number of other tours will feature special activities for guests during the day. The event in rural Caroline County on April 22 takes visitors to estates that figured prominently in Virginia’s colorful history of horseracing and foxhunting. One of the pastoral properties is owned by the Joint Masters of The Caroline Hunt, and on tour day members of the hunt will be on site and will ride out with hounds. At another property, an 1827 Federal home once planted with more than 460 boxwoods, there will be a horticultural display of flowers and shrubs used in the splendid arrangements created by Garden Club members for each house on tour. This exciting tour is sponsored by members of the Rappahannock Valley Garden Club of Fredericksburg.
Numerous special activities planned for visitors to the April 22 Petersburg tour include demonstrations on small-garden planning and plantings, a cello recital, a demonstration of container gardening, and a continuous fashion show during the luncheon period. This tour takes place in Petersburg’s most historic district, opening handsome antebellum mansions filled with fine antiques and collectibles.
Fourteen of Hampton’s best professional and amateur floral designers will create flower arrangements interpreting paintings in the exhibit, “Jean Craig Jones and Allan Jones Retrospective,” on view at the Charles H. Taylor Arts Center during Garden Week and free of charge. Visitors to the April 25 Hampton-Newport News tour will also have an opportunity to enjoy a broad sweep of the Hampton Roads waterways from houses and gardens open along Hampton’s lovely Chesapeake Avenue, bordering the area’s scenic rivers and marshes. Architectural styles featured on this tour range from Spanish Mission Revival to Carolina Low Country, Georgian Revival, cottage and craftsman, in recently renovated houses surrounded by beautiful gardens. One of the homeowners, a Master Gardener, designed the delightful gardens around her house with native plants and shrubs to draw wildlife to her quiet, protected marsh, first discovered in 1609 by early English settlers from Jamestown.
Another tour offering flower arranging demonstrations is the Sunday afternoon event in Chatham on April 20. Bee Sieburg, whose work has been featured in Southern Living and Southern Living Weddings, will demonstrate her floral design techniques at 2:30 and 4:30 p.m. at the Frances Hallam Hurt Park.
Patrice Dupous of Bloom—The Art of Flowers will provide a demonstration at 1 p.m. on the April 24 Norfolk Garden Day. Her demonstration will be among activities taking place on The Green, an open space in the charming tour neighborhood of Algonquin Park.
Organizers of the April 25 Garden Week event in Suffolk are offering an interesting array of special activities for their tour guests:
- An ongoing demonstration of period flower arrangements
- Faux-painting demonstrations of period techniques and colors for marbleizing, wood graining and stenciling walls and moldings
- workshops on Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credits with emphasis on the benefit to communities for preserving historic houses and buildings.
In the fascinating, historic 37-acre grounds and gardens of the Cedar Hill Cemetery, a Suffolk landmark since 1802, guides will offer discussions of two Victorian-era themes:
- Interpreting the symbols on the extensive variety of old headstones
- A short walking tour emphasizing funereal history and practices
The Suffolk tour also features the magnificent Darden Mansion, constructed in the early 1900s, and two charming Victorian homes that have been restored recently.
In addition to opening some of the Star City’s finest older houses and established gardens, the Roanoke Garden Week tour on April 26 will offer a lecture/demonstration on “Garden Statuary” featuring containers and statuary from a major area salvage firm. Fairacres, one of Roanoke’s most elegant residences, will be a highlight of this Saturday tour in one of the city’s most prominent older neighborhoods. The newly restored estate encompasses two and a half beautifully landscaped acres with 150 specimen trees and until recently was the headquarters of the Roanoke Council of Garden Clubs.
ATTENTION NASCAR FANS: LUNCH AT THE RACETRACK
The Martinsville Garden Clubs have an unusual treat in store for guests of their tour on April 23. In addition to visits to attractive new private homes and gardens in the area, holders of tour and lunch tickets may dine in the President’s Suite at the Martinsville Speedway and have a guided tour of the track and President Clay Campbell’s elaborately equipped motor home. Members of the Patrick Henry Community College Motorsports Association will conduct guided tours of the NASCAR speedway throughout the day.
Several of the private homes open for this tour feature outstanding collections of sports memorabilia, including those from the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). These include signed helmets from NASCAR’s most famous drivers and autographed pieces from golf, football, basketball and boxing greats, including Arnold Palmer, Joe Montana, Michael Jordan and Mohammad Ali. Another private house open that day in the Ridgeway neighborhood contains an interesting collection of more than 100 music boxes.
An additional highlight of this tour will be a visit to a 5,000-square-foot glass greenhouse constructed in 2004 by the world-renowned Dutch firm VanWingerdon. The greenhouse cropping schedule produces 2,500 poinsettias, 500 cyclamen and 40,000 spring bedding plants every year. Throughout the day, students of the Magna Vista High School Horticulture Program will give floral design demonstrations in the classroom and demonstrations in the greenhouse covering a range of garden topics.
Please join us for one or more of our beautiful tours this year, and enjoy our special celebration of the 75th anniversary season of Historic Garden Week in Virginia. Your ticket provides entry not only to Virginia’s finest private houses and gardens, but also directly supports the restoration of the Commonwealth’s most important historic landscapes by The Garden Club of Virginia.