Brookgreen Gardens

Brookgreen Gardens is a private non-profit quite near to where we are staying. The gardens include a beautiful sculpture collection displayed in carefully groomed formal and informal gardens, as well as a number of buildings for display of sculptures and cultural collections. Brookgreen Gardens were founded by Anna Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973), an accomplished sculptor with a very rich husband, Archer Huntington. Beginning in 1930, they lived in a house across the road from the current gardens. The house, now a ruin, stands inside of the adjacent Huntington Beach State Park which is named for them. 

When the Huntingtons moved to the area, many rich people from the industrial Northeast were acquiring former plantations in coastal South Carolina as second homes, or as healthful places to live. Anna Huntington suffered from tuberculosis, which the sea climate was reputed to cure. She did live to a very old age, so maybe that was correct. 

Brookfield Gardens, when the Huntingtons owned it, combined four former rice plantations. Rice cultivation was very labor-intensive, and depended on slavery for economic viability. After the Civil War, large-scale production of rice declined, and was effectively finished in the late 19th century. Most plantations in this area fell into disrepair or ruin by the 1920s and 1930s when the elite from the northeast began to acquire them. On Sandy Island, which is across the river from Brookgreen Gardens, a few descendants of the slaves, who are of Gullah Geechee heritage, still continue to produce a very small quantity of rice. 

A beautiful sunny morning was perfect for visiting the gardens today. We began with the Carl Milles work "Fountain of the Muses," which delighted me when I visited here last year. I enjoyed photographing some of the detail of the sculptures.

One of the muses in Carl Milles's fountain. Many years ago this fountain was located in the Metropolitan Museum in
New York, but it was sold to Brookgreen Gardens when the dining room where the fountain stood was remodeled.

A small animal perched on a water jet of the fountain.

Early Spring Flowers in the Garden

More Sculpture

A lion, created by Anna Hyatt Huntington. I took this photo especially for blogger Iris Flavia,
who includes lions in every blog post. She has permission to use this photo if she chooses.

A sculpture of Bernard Baruch (1870-1965). He was one of the Easterner plantation-owners in
this area in the mid-20th century. This sculpture, dated 2013, is by Maria J. Kirby-Smith (b. 1949). 

This blog post and all photos copyright © 2020 mae sander 

for maefood dot blog spot dot com.