DAMSEL IN DISTRESS
By Mark Stith
Editor�s prologue: The following recollection took place during the summer of 1991, when I was a staff writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Dan Franklin, who passed away in 2004, was a friend of mine. Dan was a well-known landscape architect based in Atlanta. Dan was passionate about preserving and celebrating the South�s rich collection of historic public gardens through his membership in the Southern Garden History Society. Read more about this group in the attached box and how you can join.
�Mark, this is Dan Franklin,� the voice on the phone drawls out my name. �How the hell are you?� I instantly recognize his sharp tone, softened a bit with his southern accent, like a scotch and soda. Whenever Dan calls, the topic is going to be good. Or bad. Dan has opinions, and doesn�t call me to pass the time.� He�s up to something.
�Have you ever heard of Barnsley Gardens?� he asks, knowing that I probably haven�t. �It�s also called Woodlands,� Dan says, as if that would trigger my memory. �Godfrey Barnsley started it in the mid-1800s, but his wife, Julia, died before he finished it,� he continues. �It�s been abandoned for years, but there�s something good getting ready to happen.�
�No, Dan,� I reply. If I was a fish, Dan would have jerked the line and set the hook about now. �Good. Let�s go see it,� he insists. �It�s about an hour north of Atlanta, and is a marvelous old estate and garden that this German fellow, Prince Pfuger, just bought. He wants me to take a look at it. I�ll even drive.� As if that would clinch the deal. �I�m in,� I reply without hesitation.
We compare appointment calendars. After complaining about being overworked and double-booked, we suddenly have tomorrow free. And so our modern-day Huck Finn adventure begins.
Thank goodness it would take place during a bright summer day. Seeing Barnsley Gardens in the condition it was in at night would have been as scary as Huck going to the cemetery. I�d later find out the garden did have two ghosts. One was the spirit of Julia Barnsley, wife of wealthy businessman Godfrey Barnsley, who dedicated the garden and mansion to her. The second ghost- the one we would look for- was the ghost of the actual garden and Italianate mansion, begun in 1841. Over the years, a combination of tragedies, including the ravages of the Civil War,� harsh economic adversities that evaporated Godfrey�s fortune, and a tornado, would gradually cause both home and garden to be abandoned, neglected, and all but forgotten.
Dan�s job- and our joy- was to verify the �bones� of the garden first. �Godfrey Barnsley was a superb gardener,� Dan explains to me, as we drive up a quarter-mile, dirt road that swoops to the right. �Very knowledgeable. He kept up with all the latest plants and styles back in the early to mid-1800s.
��He had elaborate plans drawn up for an extensive series of gardens, with ponds, pathways, a rose garden, and themed garden areas,� Dan says. �However, that doesn�t mean they were actually built. I�m going to work with some other people he has hired to find out what was planted and see what needs to be restored.� Although Dan had been to the garden previously, he was still learning his way around the property.
About two hours out of Atlanta, Dan wheels his dark blue Ford Escort station wagon off the main highway near Adairsville and onto an unmarked gravel road. I still haven�t seen any garden or mansion. Then, like an apparition, Barnsley Gardens-or what�s left of it- comes into dramatic, breath-taking view.
�Dan, stop the car right here for a minute,� I ask. Dan complies, and we both gaze for a moment at a panoramic scene of majestic beauty and tragic ruin. The gracefully curving approach lane leads into a broad, circular drive in front of a multi-arched, three-story, hollowed out brick shell of the Italianate mansion, begun in 1841. Inside the approximately 100-foot diameter circle, a Gordian knot of� green vines slowly strangles a dense planting of contorted, head-high boxwoods. Dan parks the car in front of the house and we hop out. I�m gawking at the ruins of the mansion, which sit on a slight elevation overlooking the boxwoods. The arches resemble eyebrows, frozen in that upturned expression of curiosity and questioning, as if asking where everyone has gone, who are we,� and what are we doing here? I�m imagining the laughter and excitement of happy guests arriving at the entrance, and am startled when I hear Dan�s muffled voice some distance behind me.
�Be careful in here,� Dan warns. He�s disappeared into the boxwood maze, heard but unseen. �There�s poison ivy, catbrier, and all other kinds of foolishness growing. But won�t these boxwoods be marvelous? They�ve got to be completely re-shaped and all this mess has to be cut out of them.�
But at least we know one part of the garden that was planted for certain-this boxwood maze. The bushes are at least as old as the house, and I�m delighted they�re still here.
We spend the rest of the day like a couple of school kids, walking around the estate and discovering old pathways, ponds, critters, and pointing to this and that. Occasionally, Dan, who is many years my elder, quizzes me about plants we find. �What�s that?� he asks me, as we walk by a small tree festooned with prissy-pink blooms about the size of your hand.
�Tree althea,� I reply, thanking the heavens he asks me an easy plant to identify. �Who brought it to America?� he continues. A little harder, but I know that one, too. Whew. �P.J.A. Berckmans,� I answer. Berckmans introduced Chinese wisteria, privet, and other plants at his nursery in Augusta, Georgia, which is now the site of the Augusta National Golf Club. Dan nods his approval, and then we explore some more.
We walk for what must feels like miles along what must have been the original pathways, through dense forests, past ponds and dykes, deeper into the mystery of Barnsley. Dan is quick to give credit to other parties involved in this reclamation process. First, of course, was Prince Hubertus Fugger-Babbenhausen, who purchased the neglected property with plans for both restoring the garden and creating an upscale resort. Then Erica Glasener, who with then-husband Steve Wheaton would both promote the garden while supervising or providing much of the tremendous amount of physical labor needed to restore any garden, much less one this size.
At the end of the day, we are slap worn-out, as the southern expression goes. We have found an old garden. Now it�s clear what we both have to do. We have to tell others.
Editor�s note: Dan Franklin, ASLA, passed away in 2004 at the age of 87. A complex and controversial figure, Dan left behind� a slew of enemies chasing him like a posse, but a greater number of� forever friends who, as I did,� just shook their heads and looked the other way when Dan �went off� on something. (If you knew Dan, you know he wouldn�t mind me saying this.)
My favorite lesson of Dan�s is the two-martini concept of garden design. To paraphrase him, �no garden should take more than two martinis every evening to maintain.� Although a martini is not my poison of choice, my garden-under-construction observes this high standard above any other. Look, Claude Monet had� six full-time gardeners at Giverny paradise. True, Monet�s garden was B.C. (Before internal Combustion), but still, he had a whole lotta help.
No one could dispute that Dan was a talented gardener and designer. As he did at Barnsley Gardens, his sharp eye perceived the elements that separate a garden from a bunch of plants, a couple of flower pots by the front door, and some grass. He saw the statue in the stone.
Dan also willed his passionate desire for the ongoing preservation of great Southern places, especially its gardens, by his participation in the Southern Garden History Society (see box). We�ll look at more Great Southern Places in this series, and would love to hear suggestions from you.
Copyright 2006 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.�
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