Georgia’s Hills and Dales Estate presents the unusual situation of a house site determined by an existing garden instead of a new house dictating garden placement. Although the Italian villa-type home designed by Atlanta architect Neel Reid of Hentz & Reid (influenced strongly by Charles Adams Platt) dates to the early twentieth century, the formal garden it faces finds firm roots in the antebellum past. Distilled to basics, it is the story of two economies and one crop, pre-Civil War cotton plantation and post-bellum cotton manufacturing. As well, it is an account of two families and to a remarkable degree of three women, exemplifying the central role women have played in the creation and improvement of southern gardens.
It begins with the 1835 Blount and Sarah Coleman Ferrell marriage and the 1840s transformation of former cotton fields (gifted by her parents) into terraced box-edged parterre gardens complemented by stone walls. As enslaved workers, guided by Sarah, continued work, the property came to stand out even in a town known for floral display. Her strong religious beliefs, moreover, found expression through gardening, especially by using dwarf box in such ways as to spell out “God is love” or to fashion myriad other box forms symbolizing Christian faith. The garden also honored Blount, a lawyer as well as a planter, with shrubbery trimmed to form Latin legal terms or masonic symbols.
A milestone moment came just after the Civil War when Sarah allowed public access to the Ferrell gardens, then termed “The Terraces.” They remained open until Sarah and Blount’s deaths (1903 and 1908), many visitors with war losses surely finding solace there. A significant, frequent guest was life-long LaGrange resident and twentieth-century textile giant Fuller Earle Callaway. Ultimately it was Callaway and his wife Ida Jane Cason who acquired the Ferrell gardens in 1911 and soon built their home on the former Ferrell house site. Evidencing Ida’s dedication, direction, and faith, they also improved and expanded the grounds extensively, adding, for example, Neel Reid-designed fountains and statuary to enhance the Italianate nature of the hardscape. For additional guidance the Callaways turned to Harvard-trained landscape architect William Bell Marquis. (Then employed by P.J. Berckmans, Marquis would spend most of his career in Massachusetts with the Olmsted firm.) Apropos of new ownership and improvements to the rolling terrain, Fuller and Ida adopted the name “Hills and Dales” for their estate.
Unwavering in her dedication to Hills and Dales, Ida Cason survived Fuller by eight years, dying in 1936. Ownership then passed to Fuller Jr. and Alice Hand Callaway, Alice proving to be as dedicated to the gardens as her mother-in-law and Sarah Ferrell before. Ida and Alice, however, brought their own individual ideas to Hills and Dales, while remaining faithful to the initial imprint of Sarah. Alice, for example, took great interest and pride in the plants that populated the Italian-influenced garden design.
With the death of Fuller, Jr. in 1992 and Alice Hand in 1998 the many decades of Ferrell-Callaway residence ended, and the property was transferred to the Fuller E. Callaway Foundation. The tradition of opening their amazing gardens for public enjoyment continued, however, regular access to both house and grounds being initiated in 2004.
Southern Garden History Society members know Hills and Dales through an optional tour of the property featured during the 2003 Atlanta annual meeting. As well, Society leaders gathered there in October 2022 for a board meeting and a thorough exploration of the gardens. Hills and Dales Estate’s current executive director, Carleton Wood, moreover, is a Society past president, while it features prominently in Seeking Eden, co-written by Society past president and honorary board member Staci Catron.
For more details, visit: https://www.hillsanddales.org/
For a Cultural Landscape Foundation biographical sketch of W. B. Marquis, see https://www.tclf.org/pioneer/william-bell-marquis
Recommended reading: Staci L. Catron and Mary Ann Eaddy (photography by James R. Lockhart), Seeking Eden: A Collection of Georgia’s Historic Gardens, 180-197.
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