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Bellingrath Home and Gardens-Official Website

On your self-guided walking tour, you will enjoy the 2004 Top Public Rose Garden in the U.S., as awarded by the All-America Rose Selections, experience the Bayou Boardwalk, marvel at Mirror Lake, behold the Great Lawn, view the Asian-American Gardens, stroll through the Butterfly Garden, observe formal garden terraces and more !

Bellingrath Gardens and Home was the creation of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Bellingrath.  The Gardens first opened to the public in 1932 while a national garden club meeting was taking place in Mobile.  Mr. Bellingrath placed an ad in the Mobile paper, announcing that anyone who would like to see the spring garden could do so free of charge.  After an overwhelming response, the couple decided to keep the gardens open year-round, beginning in 1934.

Throughout the year, this 65 acre Garden Estate is in full bloom with camellias in the winter, azaleas in the spring, roses in the summer, chrysanthemums in autumn and Magic Christmas in Lights during the holiday season.

The Bellingrath Home, complete with its original furnishings and Mrs. Bellingrath’s extensive collection of decorative arts.

Mobile's Zalea Magazine had the following informative article in their Nov. 2009 issue.

Bellingrath Gardens remains an enduring gift to visitors

By Marcia Bradford, Zalea Magazine

Gardens are often valued as healing places, where people can relax and temporarily escape the stress in their lives. Over the past seven decades, many of the visitors to Bellingrath Gardens have surely felt their tensions ease as they strolled through the colorful, well-tended grounds, which offer new things to admire with every season. But long before the famous gardens of azaleas, camellias and roses were developed, this site along Fowl River was prescribed as needed therapy for the man who would one day open it up to the community he loved and help it become a nationally admired attraction.

Bellingrath2.jpgView full sizeBelle Camp on Fowl River was developed as a country retreat, complete with new plantings, for the Bellingraths and their relatives.In 1917, Walter Bellingrath was enjoying great success in business and a happy personal life. He had started Mobile’s first Coca-Cola bottling operation in 1903 and built it into a thriving enterprise, covering his 100-mile franchise area single-handedly in the early years. In 1906, he married Bessie Mae Morse, who had been his stenographer. The franchise flourished and a new Coca-Cola bottling plant was opened on Royal Street in 1911, the first that was built from the ground up for the company. That same year, the Bellingraths moved into the Tacon House, which was designed by famed Mobile architect George Rogers and located on Ann Street in downtown Mobile.

Unfortunately, by 1917, Walter Bellingrath was not enjoying good health, and to make matters worse, Mobile was in the midst of an influenza scare. When Bellingrath went to his physician to discuss his ailments, he was told he needed to “learn how to play” and was advised to go ahead and purchase the fishing camp on Fowl River, a property that he had been admiring for some time, as a place to fish, rest and relax.

Photo: Mr. and Mrs. Bellingrath.

This turned out to be beneficial advice for both the Bellingraths and the surrounding area.

The property, called “Belle Camp,” was a large, wooded 65-acre tract with two dilapidated shacks and had no electricity or running water when the Bellingraths bought it. But according to Thomas McGehee, the estate’s museum director since 1994, Walter absolutely loved it. He and his father-in-law fixed up the cabins and used the camp for hunting and fishing with friends. As McGehee relates, it wasn’t long before Bessie Bellingrath began making trips to the camp to check up on the boys. “She was pretty sure they weren’t always sipping Coca-Cola out there,” he said.

On many of her journeys to Belle Camp, Mrs. Bellingrath brought cuttings from her garden on Ann Street. A longtime, self-taught gardening enthusiast, Bessie could “rattle off the scientific and common names of nearly every plant she passed,” McGehee said. In fact, she had built such an extensive garden at her house in downtown Mobile that Walter bought the vacant lot behind the house so that she could extend her flower beds. She soon had the city’s largest collection of azaleas, as well as many varieties of camellias and other flowering plants. Throughout the 1920s, as the number of people wanting to view the garden increased, the Bellingraths allowed automobiles to travel their drive and admire the blooms, often sending out household staff to direct the traffic.

Over the years, as the Bellingraths began to develop Belle Camp as a country retreat
for themselves and their siblings, the transplanted azaleas and camellias steadily grew in number. Then, during an extensive tour of Europe in 1927, the Bellingraths became inspired by the country estates and gardens in England and throughout the continent.

When they returned to Mobile, they hired George Rogers to help them design and develop their property along the Fowl River into an estate that would showcase regional plants. According to McGehee, Rogers took meandering paths and added a backdrop of tall camellias and azaleas, which he and Mrs. Bellingrath collected from across the Deep South. Water features of fountains and waterfalls were installed and framed with English flagstone walkways. The stone came from old city sidewalks in Mobile, which had first arrived as ballast in English sailing vessels.

Meanwhile, work on a 15-room house that would become the Bellingrath’s permanent residence continued through 1936. According to McGehee, Rogers designed the house after the “English Renaissance” style, but also sought to create a look that conjured the coastal South and fit into the setting as though it had always been there. The latter goal was achieved, in part, by using brick from the Mobile birthplace of Alva Smith Vanderbilt Lamont, which had been recently demolished. Additionally, iron galleries were salvaged from the demolished Southern Hotel, which had once stood at the corner of Conti and Water Streets.

“The Bellingraths could be considered early recyclers,” McGehee said. “They liked reusing materials that had been a part of Mobile’s history.”

A tour of the house today reveals that Mrs. Bellingrath was an avid collector of antiques, many of which she purchased from shops in New Orleans. “It has been said that she helped keep many shops in New Orleans, as well as some in Mobile, in business during the Depression years,” McGehee said.

Along with collecting furniture, silver, china, crystal and cut glass made by some of the best-known artists around the world, Mrs. Bellingrath was known to pay top dollar for many “family treasures,” seeking to help out local people who were struggling. According to McGehee, this sometimes meant going to people’s homes and begging for a cutting of the “one-of-a-kind” azalea, camellia or other plant in their yard or purchasing the “special” pieces of furniture or house wares that families brought out to show her.

The Rose Garden was designed by Walter Bellingrath to resemble the shape of his Rotary Club pin.

The award-winning rose garden pays tribute to Walter Bellingrath’s civic involvement. Containing more than 2,000 roses in 75 varieties, it is shaped in the design of his Rotary Club pin. “He was a founder and major supporter of the Rotary, the Mobile Infirmary and the Mobile Chamber of Commerce,” McGehee said. “In fact, on at least two occasions, he wrote checks to cover annual deficits for the Chamber.”

Bellingrath’s desire to support his community extended to promotion of the gardens as a national attraction. “Walter very much wanted to put Mobile on the map and opening Bellingrath Gardens to the public helped accomplish that goal,” MeGehee said.

Such efforts did not go unnoticed by the people of Mobile. In 1938, the Bellingraths returned from a week in New Orleans to find more than 200 Mobilians waiting for them. On that day, a bronze plaque was unveiled that thanked Walter and Bessie, on behalf of the citizens of Mobile, for opening their private estate and making it a nationally known destination.

While Rogers is credited with designing the Bellingrath Gardens and Home, the ideas and interests of the Bellingraths were significant to the process. Bessie Bellingrath’s instinctual sense of garden design helped create The Rockery, one of the most photographed spots on the property. It was her vision to transform a hillside that had been washed out by water draining from an artesian spring into an elaborately built rock garden with steps winding around terraces and waterfalls, and Bessie personally supervised the placement of every rock, flower and shrub. Many years later, her nephew told about overhearing Rogers suggest to Mrs. Bellingrath that developing such a garden would be very complicated and expensive. “Well,” she is said to have answered, “whose money is it?”

Mirror Lake, which serves as the backdrop for many photos from Bellingrath, is another example of the couple’s creative involvement. Originally a muddy pond created by sawmill runoff in the 19th century, it was turned into a beautiful lake, which reflects the blazing colors of the azaleas in spring. To accomplish this, the Bellingraths had hundreds of tree stumps cleared and dammed the northern end of the lake. Additionally, Walter had the lake stocked with fish, and a rustic bridge was built to create a walk that encircles the water. Throughout the year this bridge is adorned with seasonal displays of geraniums, allamandas and chrysanthemums.

Even though the gardens were open to visitors throughout the year, the Bellingraths’ house and grounds remained a family retreat through the 1930s and 40s, McGehee said. Bessie and Walter had no children of their own, but there were lots of nieces and nephews, as well as grandnieces and nephews, who romped over the grounds, swam in the river and stayed at the house.

In order to accommodate the large extended family and other frequent guests, the Bellingraths had Rogers design a Guest House above a six-car garage, with an adjoining chapel. This was to be the last project for Rogers, who passed away in 1945 at age 76.

In 1943, while on vacation in Hot Springs, Ark., Bessie Bellingrath died of a sudden heart attack at age 64. Walter – who had until that time left nearly all the garden design to his wife, often referring to the vast plantings as “Bessie’s shrubs” – became dedicated to maintaining the gardens she had worked so hard to create, McGehee said. In 1949, he announced the formation of the Bellingrath-Morse Foundation “to maintain the gardens and oversee the operation of the museum home as a fitting and permanent memorial to my wife.”

Walter passed away in 1955, at age 86, and was known for enjoying long conversations with visitors during his later years, McGehee said. In 1956, the Bellingrath Home was opened to the public and immediately became a popular part of the grounds tour.

Over the ensuing years, many changes have been made. In the early 1960s, a new entrance building and café replaced the old lodge, and the Asian-American Garden was installed. In 1976, the garage under the guest house was enclosed to create the Delchamps Collection of Boehm Porcelain.

Hurricane Frederick took a toll on the property in 1979, knocking down many of the old live oaks and closing the gardens until March of 1981. In 1995, the Southern Belle
River Cruiser began taking passengers out on the Fowl River for waterfront tours of the gardens.

Magic Christmas in Lights, a display of over 3 million lights, with 902 set pieces in 12 scenes, was started in 1996 and has become one of the most popular annual events at the gardens. The Bayou Boardwalk, which first opened in 1996 and re-opened in 2007 following repair of damages caused by Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, features interpretive panels about the ecology, history, animals and plants of the Fowl River Watershed.

Even as Bellingrath Gardens continues to evolve and grow, much of the property remains true to the original plans and designs of Walter and Bessie Bellingrath. When establishing the foundation, Walter mandated that the home be kept just as it was when the family lived there. Today, the house appears almost exactly as it did in the historical photos, taken circa 1939, that are placed in each room. This allows guests to see the “ultra-modern” bathrooms of 1935 and the kitchen with its original appliances.

According to McGehee, the kitchen is one of the most popular areas for visitors, many
of which can remember seeing similar appliances in their own or grandparents’ houses.

He also pointed out that the pristine condition of the rooms is in keeping with Bessie Bellingrath’s day. “She was known for keeping an immaculate house,” McGehee said. “She was meticulous, and yet, there are many great stories of her letting children run through the house and play with valuable objects.”

McGehee’s ability to relate a number of funny and interesting tales about the Bellingrath family help bring back to life the people that created such an enduring gift to Mobile, and demonstrates his own deep interest in this historic site. He is able to inject so much personality into his knowledge of the place in part because McGehee made it his goal upon becoming Museum Director to talk to the surviving great nieces and nephews of the Bellingraths, to hear their stories about weekends and summer vacations spent at the property out on Fowl River. But McGehee said he also feels a very personal connection to the property. It turns out that it was his grandfather, Dr. Paul McGehee, who in 1917 advised Walter Bellingrath to go ahead and buy that fishing camp on the Fowl River.

For More Information
(251) 973-2217; (800) 247-8420
www.bellingrath.org

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