Thursday, 24 July 2014
The gardens were originally part of a large country estate and
farm created by tobacco magnate R. J.
Reynolds and his wife Katharine Smith Reynolds between 1906 and 1923. In 1913
the Lord & Burnham greenhouse was built to serve the family and farm, and
to produce flowers commercially. Landscape architect Thomas W. Sears (1880–1966)
designed the 4-acre formal garden for
Mrs. Reynolds, starting in 1915. After the death of Mrs. Reynolds in 1924, most of the property was gradually sold
or given away, including a gift of 300 acres to Wake Forest College in the late 1940s for
its Winston-Salem campus. In a series of gifts from 1958 to 1962, their
daughter Mary Reynolds Babcock established Reynolda Gardens by donating its
property to the college. Source
