Firsthand walk through Raleigh's secret garden
Hi there
I'm W R L's hidden historian Heather Leah
And today I am very excited to show you around
a secret garden hidden right here in Raleigh
And I'm in the garden right now
It's closed off to the public
It's on private property but they're going to open it
for one day only this weekend
They're letting me show you around this garden is nearly
a century old
It's been on private property
It has an incredible story behind it
It's absolutely beautiful
So I'm going to go ahead and start showing you
around
I'm standing on Oberlin Road where drivers are passing by
every single day without even realizing that behind this curtain
of ivy is hidden
A secret world
Many people don't realize that Raleigh has a secret garden
and it's almost a century old
You could see these cobblestone pathways here just through this
gate which is normally closed to the public
There's a garden that has been tended for almost a
century
Uh Not many things in Raleigh have been around for
over a century but the home here is from the
1800s and the gardens were planted in the 1930s and
they've been kept alive and growing ever since then
And I'm very excited that today they actually opened the
gardens just to let me in so that I could
take a look around before the crowds arrive on Sunday
So this Sunday April 2nd for one day only they're
opening these gardens to the public
And so this private enclave this oasis that's hidden very
close to downtown Raleigh right in historic Oberlin will be
open to the public and you'll be able to see
it for yourself
But today they wanted to let me come through and
give you a preview of what these gardens look like
And really I've seen pictures the gardens look very similar
uh to how they looked in the 1930s and 40s
Now these gardens were planted by a woman named Isabelle
Bowen Henderson and this is the woman that grew a
garden that lasted 100 years and hopefully longer
And I will tell you as we look at these
beautiful bulbs and these flowers and these these this is
actually the older part of the garden
This was originally part of a a separate garden but
also in the family
And when they sold off that property Isabel took a
part of that garden over so you can see little
flowers growing like little fairies just hovering above this old
cobblestone this kind of wild look this this sense of
it's green and it's tended but it's not kept perfect
And perfectly sheared and clipped but rather allowed to grow
a little bit outside the lines to color outside the
lines if you will
Uh that was part of Isabelle's uh personality and her
charm
Uh she didn't want to have the perfectly pruned garden
She wanted to have color and and greenery and these
meandering cobblestone and brick pathways
Um but she was inspired by the gardens that she
saw in Williamsburg
Now she was an artist if you couldn't tell from
looking at her gardens here and honestly learning about her
she was a pretty incredible person
Um She grew up in Raleigh in the early 1900s
and she became a portrait artist
And during an era and again this is this is
her home really frozen in time here
Uh Because the descendants have kept the home up and
have kept the gardens up
Again a lot of things in Raleigh don't last um
over 100 years in this exact same way but this
private oasis has really stood the test of time anyways
she was a woman uh that she sounded incredible
Um First of all if if you grew up in
Raleigh you may even have a portrait by her
I've met several people who did um her she was
single uh she did get married but uh her husband
and her marriage did not work out
Uh And so in a time during a time where
many women really relied on having a husband to help
with the finances she supported all of this these gardens
all the renovations and you know the additions to the
garden
Now look at this view you can see pictures of
the garden um from the 1940s it looked just like
this view
It's it's just stayed frozen in time and she afforded
all of that and expansions on the house uh with
her own money and this income she made primarily through
her art
Uh She was a portrait artist and again I've met
many people and Raleigh who have uh a portrait that
she painted for them
So this was a she was very popular
She was in newspapers and magazines all the time
Uh She wrote and she wrote in magazines and garden
magazines and uh art magazines and and really shared her
knowledge about gardening and art
Uh and she created this this wonderland um which was
really kind of a private wonderland
Now the house you see there that house uh very
historic house and has been almost torn down at least
once possibly twice
Um That home is very likely one of the oldest
homes in historic Oberland Village
Uh see a little bee here
This garden is just full of life
And so that home was built in the 18 hundreds
uh before Isabelle lived there
Uh There were other families that lived there
Uh The Hinton family lived there uh as well as
the Haywood family and uh they married into the graves
family
And the graves house seems to have been built a
generation later
And that's one of the you know big Oberlin houses
that you see when you drive through Oberlin Village Oberland
Village
Um just for context is a historic Friedman's village uh
was formed by people who had been freed uh from
the local plantations and area plantations uh after ended after
the emancipation
So those historic Friedman's villages were very important to Raleigh's
history
And only two of them remained standing today
But this house was part of that history quite possibly
one of the first houses in uh historic Oberland village
But when her family bought it and it would have
been quite old by the time they bought it in
the 1930s
Um if it had been built in the 1800s but
they decided they they rather than tearing it down and
starting new they would keep it standing because they wanted
to preserve that history
And so she kept that history alive and much of
that house if you step inside uh this weekend they
will let you go inside that house and you'll be
able to see um some of that original history from
Oberland Village as well
Oh look they've got a millstone used to decorate uh
this private enclave
The secret garden has these old trees as you can
see some of them were lost during Fran uh but
these trees are likely nearly a century old if not
older themselves
Uh Having seen a lot of history there's also a
carriage house and there is a uh a shedd an
herb garden
So there's more to the garden than just the plants
There's there's an entire hidden enclave in here
We're gonna step inside and see some of the history
she saved in here
Now I will say uh her sister inherited this garden
and this house when she passed away and she her
sister um which is the grandmother of the person who
lives here
Now um literally saved this house uh from being demolished
when the city of Raleigh
Look at that view through the window beautiful when the
city of Raleigh uh wanted to build a five lane
road uh right through this part of Raleigh which of
course was right near Hillsborough Street and what would have
been Cameron Village at the time
So uh there was a fight to save this house
from destruction and generations of family have kept it up
since then
Uh If that five lane road had been allowed to
go through it would have likely destroyed this house the
garden as well as uh historic Overland Village
So the people who lived in this house the women
who lived in this house have really fought to preserve
it and the family that is here now uh Russ
Stevenson lives here
Now it's been passed on through the generations and it's
a testament to people who fight to preserve Raleigh's history
You can visit this house and the gardens this weekend
they're opening for one day only uh Sunday April two
and uh you can come see it for yourself
I hope to see you then and I'll see you
next time for more hidden history
Thanks