Landscape Information
Local industrialist Charles Kelley King developed this 47-acre site in 1926 on what was then the edge of Mansfield, Ohio, as his Country Place estate. Cleveland-based landscape architects Pitkin and Mott designed and built simple geometric elements - half-circles and axial layouts - using native stone, timber, and vernacular workmanship, exemplifying the English Arts and Crafts style of Gertrude Jekyll, Edward Lutyens, and Lawrence Weaver. The gardens were built around the King's existing swimming pool and were designed in a manner that forced access to the pool through an adjoining garden room. The design was described in The American Architect as “the pictorial aspect of old English towns” and included a sunken garden, the swimming pool surrounded by framing trellises and a turf of mint, a round reflecting pool, and paths through a less formal wooded garden. The estate’s perimeter included informal groupings of deciduous and evergreen trees which articulated the edges of open lawn.
Following King’s death in 1952, the property became a privately operated public garden. The French provincial mansion, the service buildings, and much of the historic designed landscape remained while new display gardens and horticultural features were introduced.
