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Hot off the heels of talking about two projects in my e-newsletter column last month, I now want to update you on a plethora of other projects that have been ongoing at Bellingrath Gardens & Home. Honestly y’all, it sometimes takes a scorecard for me to keep up with everything! Although it’s not quite the ten frames from a bowling scorecard, we think you’ll be impressed.
Project 1 – Permanent Lighting for the Overflow Parking Lot – As part of our “Laying the Groundwork for the Centennial Master Plan” fundraising campaign, Cory Sparks and I worked hard to secure $235,000, and counting, in funding for this year alone! One of the first projects let from this initiative was for McCollum Electric (Mobile, AL) to install buried electrical conductors running to, and then among, six light poles installed at the perimeter of the overflow parking lot (adjacent to the Greenhouse Complex), and then to affix new LED light fixtures purchased last year to these poles. This work will eliminate BGH’s need to rent diesel-powered portable light towers during seasonal events such as Magic Christmas in Lights. I am happy to report that this project is almost complete, as of this May 31 writing. We thank the Crampton Trust for a major $75,000 gift recently given to the “Laying the Groundwork” campaign and also our other funders: The J.L. Bedsole Foundation, A.S. Mitchell Foundation, Dr. Monte L. Moorer Foundation, Laidlaw Foundation, and Julien E. Marx Foundation.
Project 2 – Revitalized Arbors – Visitors regularly enjoy walking around Mirror Lake at BGH, and we often see them appreciating the swings on the North Arbor and West Arbor, and also the ones on the Brick Patio. As with wooden members that we had to replace on the Bayou Boardwalk last year, these Arbors also required significant repairs. BGH’s own Maintenance Department, superbly led by Harold Fischer, has addressed these concerns and topped them off with nice paint jobs using our Urbane Bronze color as a finish. Thanks, Harold, Mitchell, Dubby, and Becca!
Project 3 – Archaeological Dig Redux (Round 2026) – Way back in 2000, the University of South Alabama’s Center for Archaeological Studies, then led by Dr. Gregory Waselkov, conducted several digs at BGH to identify and locate the 1760s era “Lisloy Plantation” site. That work resulted in significant finds of artifacts, but, alas, no follow-up studies were done. We decided to re-engage the Center, now under Dr. Philip Carr’s leadership, and in May hosted USA Archaeology students for follow-up digs in several areas. More artifacts were found, and a report will be generated in the coming months. We are so thrilled and honored to have a continuation of this important research on the BGH campus. We thank the Alabama Humanities Alliance for providing funding in support of this project, too. Stay tuned for more when Professor Carr presents a preliminary report on Monday, June 22nd, at 10 a.m. in the Magnolia Room.
Project 4 – Headhouse Insulation Progress – Over the past winter and early spring months, we crowd-funded a $25,000 project to replace the insulation at BGH’s Headhouse building (the metal-frame, mid-1980s structure that serves as the working space for our Greenhouse staff). Thanks to you – and with no small amount of “enticement” from our irresistible “greenhouse sales kitty,” Kiwi, we were able to reach this goal! Energy Control Insulation (Theodore, AL) recently completed the first phase of this project – the removal and disposal of the old insulation. We are now working in an interim period with E. Cornell Malone Corp. (Mobile, AL) on some follow-up needs on the roof seal work they performed last year as well as sealing work needed on the exterior walls. We feel that by mid-summer, we will have the new insulation installed by Energy Control Insulation, bringing this much-needed building improvements project to a close!
Project 5 – New Greenhouse Fans – Thanks to the successful award of a $21,000, nationally-competitive grant from a California-based charitable foundation, BGH has been able to embark on a “critical-need” project – the replacement of all of the exhaust and circulating fans for all of our greenhouses. This $21,000 grant, awarded in December, allowed us to purchase enough exhaust fans to completely modernize our two largest greenhouses with industrial-grade, top-line fans and to install premium-quality circulating fans in all of the greenhouses. Although many more exhaust fans need to be replaced, we can now say that we have achieved serious momentum on this crucial need of maximizing functionality of our aging and deteriorated Greenhouse Complex facilities.
Project 6 – Electrical Infrastructure Engineering – Bellingrath’s electrical infrastructure is old. Four years ago, we celebrated the reconstruction of new, buried power mains leading to our property, a major leap forward for us. Until this year’s success with our “Laying the Groundwork for the Centennial Master Plan” capital campaign, however, we did not have the budgetary means to address the electrical infrastructure that we own – the lines, panels, subpanels, etc. from the Alabama Power transformers “inward” onto the BGH campus. Thanks both to the technical expertise of Hargrove Engineers and Constructors and their generous support as Business Circle members, however, we can now say that we are literally days away from having a brand new, site-wide electrical engineering plan for Bellingrath Gardens & Home! You will be hearing LOTS about this plan in the coming months, as we soon shift gears to rebuild our electrical infrastructure, replacing outdated, inadequate infrastructure while also expanding our grid to accommodate our continuing growth and future development per the Centennial Master Plan. The days of cables hanging from trees and breaker panels fastened to our live oaks will soon be over, and we cannot be more thankful. Harold Fischer, BGH’s Maintenance Manager, and I have worked hand-in-hand with Hargrove’s Brian Penn, P.E. and Jake Lake, P.E. to produce a new vision for electrical infrastructure at Bellingrath Gardens & Home.
Project 7 – Summer House Painting – With the recent installation of the copper louvers on the new cupola on the Summer House, the only task remaining to officially close out this project is to get all of the painting work completed, a complex and not insignificant task, I might add. Fortunately, our Maintenance Department is hard at work on this, and over the next several weeks, you will see a renewed focus on this project now that other priority projects have been completed. We think you’ll also like the new color scheme that has been developed for the restoration of this historic structure. (Anyone up for some Haint Blue ceilings?!) From primer coats to paint with carpenter bee deterrents added in, we are taking this project very seriously so that this restoration lasts for another 50 years! Come and watch final bits of the project be completed over the next several weeks. (This project, as you may recall, was funded through several significant grants from local foundations, plus a crowd-funding campaign, and even a special bequest from a former Board Chair’s estate. We are planning a fall ribbon-cutting ceremony, which will be announced soon!)
Project 8 – Magnolia Room New Doors – Last but not least is a project that has also progressed since last year – the Phase 1 Renovation of the Magnolia Room. The final aspect of the project was to add in a set of custom doors – the fabrication of which became yet another test of patience on BGH’s part. With the doors now installed and hardware affixed, the only tasks remaining include painting and then installation of the closing and latching mechanisms. Due to the time required for fabrication and the above subsequent tasks, it’s probably a nice thing that Olivia Garrett, BGH’s crackerjack Marketing and PR Manager, decided to place our “step and repeat” banner in front of the unfinished doors back in January! To our pleasant surprise, the banner almost instantaneously transformed the “doors” into one of BGH’s most popular selfie stations, LOL. In the coming weeks, you’ll see painting commence and the remaining hardware installs completed, such that we will at last have finished up Phase 1 of the Magnolia Room. What about Phase 2, you ask?! Well, to that, we’ll have to ask you to stay tuned for more good things and more future projects to come.
And so, with all of these words, you now know about eight projects. That these eight projects represent only a portion of everything that is happening at BGH means that not only are there future tales to tell, but also that we have tremendously exciting things continuing to occur at Bellingrath. For this all to happen, we can only thank you, our members, supporters, and patrons. Thanks to you, we are enjoying historic investments in Bellingrath Gardens & Home, investments that will pay dividends in the years to come as we approach and then cross over into our second century as the Gulf Coast’s leading historic public garden.
Todd