The first twenty seconds of experiencing the Bellingrath website proves the timeworn adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” and confirms why Bellingrath might indeed be called “The Charm Spot of the South.” It also demonstrates the popularity of this Mobile area site, a family favorite since first opening to the public by the Bellingraths in 1932.
The Society’s initial visit to the sixty-five acres National Register property came during our April 1995 Mobile annual meeting, a function organized by charter Society member, honorary board member, and past president, the late Ed Givan. Three decades later members are looking forward to a March 7-9, 2025, Mobile meeting, a visit to Bellingrath again being a central feature on the schedule. Today, the Society maintains a Bellingrath link in the person of Executive Director Todd Lasseigne, a SGHS board member and member of the 2025 Mobile meeting planning committee.
While the development of several previously featured sites was based on pre-Civil War agricultural wealth, underpinning these gardens is the twentieth-century Coca-Cola fortune of Walter and Bessie Mae Morse Bellingrath. With humble beginnings as a fishing camp, the property owes its fundamental appearance to the influence of a Bellingrath 1927 visit to Europe and the subsequent efforts of Bessie Morse and the prominent Mobile architect George Bigelow Rogers. To quote the National Register nomination, the result displayed “characteristic vignettes of Italian and French formal gardens within an overall romantic English garden.” Like many important designed landscapes, water is key to the physical location of Bellingrath’s grand home as it faces the Fowl River over a series of formal terraces, a grotto, fountains, and pools. Water’s importance continues, moreover, throughout Bellingrath gardens, evidenced in the Mirror Lake, the Bayou Boardwalk and Observatory, and the Asian-American Garden.
Central to enjoying Bellingrath and why the term “Gardenesque” might be applied here is also to appreciate its wide array of plants and regularly evolving palate of color and forms. (Pride is taken in year-round color.) Set within a framework featuring flagstone and brick paths, pools, fountains, statuary, and a variety of trees and shrubs, the gardens are especially famed for brilliant azalea, camellia, rose, and cascading mum displays. A 1930s-built conservatory offers the experience of tropical plants, while it also provides a large structural anchor to the circular rose garden, designed to honor Walter’s Rotary Club allegiance. Color at Bellingrath is not limited to what hues plants or hardscape might provide, a look at the previously mentioned website reveals why the list of employees includes a lighting technician. Holiday light displays here are remarkable by any standard, in shapes, placement, and brilliance.
While “Gardens” comes first in the Bellingrath’s full name, the “Home” part also deserves full attention. Constructed of salvaged nineteenth-century materials from Mobile, this is no “cookie-cutter” building, but instead reveals George B. Rogers’ remarkable architectural skills and the attention to detail of his clients. Built around a courtyard, the large asymmetrical structure is a blend of Renaissance stylistic elements and massing, placing a strong emphasis on arched openings, wrought-iron materials, and masterful brickwork. The interior also reflects Rogers’ deft hand, along with Bessie Morse’s keen collecting eye.
In sum, Bellingrath Gardens & Home is a landmark of good design, which is, much like the soft drink that made it possible, keyed to public enjoyment. This writer had a great uncle who fought in France in 1918, and he once said the thing in the trenches he fancied most was an ice-cold Coca-Cola. Surely, he would have appreciated a visit to Bellingrath just as much as a frosty Coke.
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