
By Tom McGehee
Museum Home Director
Although architect George B. Rogers is rightfully credited with the design of much of Bellingrath Gardens, there was another talented man at work in their creation: Louis C. Thublin. While Rogers was the architect, Thublin was the horticulturist.
Louis Charlemagne Thublin was born outside of Paris in 1868 and apprenticed for six years to qualify as “a florist, horticulturist, and landscape architect.” At the age of 18, he immigrated to the United States and arrived in Mobile in 1886. His sister, Lucie, had married another French transplant, Claude Ravier, who had established a florist and nursery on the southwest corner of Selma and George streets.
Louis Thublin worked with his brother-in-law until 1897, when he went out on his own. The Ravier household had grown to include nine children, and two of the older sons were now in business with their father. Thublin was first located at 650 S. Broad, where he listed himself as “a florist and landscape gardener.”
Beginning Work for the Bellingraths
By 1912, when the Bellingraths began using his services on their property on South Ann Street, Mr. Thublin’s operations were located on a large lot on Marine Street, north of Virginia Street. It was Thublin’s crew that landscaped and maintained the Bellingraths’ garden at 60 S. Ann Street and made it a showplace.
It was in 1925 that Thublin began his work at Belle Camp. Bessie Bellingrath told him to bring his crew down to the camp, explaining, “If I am going to spend time down there, I want it looking nice.” It was Louis Thublin who perfected a way to transplant century-old azaleas and camellias without losing a single blossom.
After the Bellingraths returned from their European trip in 1927, they added architect George B. Rogers to the project, and he designed the hardscape so admired today. The Grotto and water features were completed in 1931, and Mirror Lake was created. All the while, the massive flowering shrubs being brought in by Thublin’s crew were carefully placed among newer arrivals.
The Gardens opened to the public in 1932, and Thublin continued to assist with the growing of flowers for the grounds until his death at the age of 75 in 1943.
Like his clients, the Bellingraths, he is buried in Mobile’s Magnolia Cemetery. Nothing remains of his nursery operations on nearby Marine Street.
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