SPRINGFIELD — Guests are invited to step into the Carriage House at the Barney Estate in Forest Park and step back in time on Aug. 24 at 1 p.m.
The occasion?
The Springfield Preservation Trust’s annual Garden Party fundraiser, “Flora & Fauna: Historic Carriage House Tour & Garden Party Fundraiser,” which will feature historic tours, an opera performance, Victorian-era music, a silent auction and hors d’oeuvres, all in the formal garden setting at The Carriage House at the Barney Estate.
Highlighting work by the Springfield Garden Club and the Springfield Department of Public Parks, the event will boast floral designs fit for Victorian-era garden strolls. Carriage House plantings information will be provided for those interested in learning more about how the Garden Club and Parks Department curate the estate’s gardens.
Guests also will be invited to take a stroll through history with a tour of the Carriage House, including the second level, which, among other gems, features Everett Barney’s office, including a restored pastoral mural and a grandfather clock which has stood on the property since the Barneys’ ownership.
The Carriage House at the Barney Estate was built in 1883 and maintained by Barney. Today, the Carriage House sits snuggly within Forest Park — at 735 acres, it is one of the largest municipal parks in the country. The park was established in 1884, when Orrick H. Greenleaf — one of the city’s park commissioners — donated 65 acres of land on the south side of Sumner Avenue. The city accepted this offer in 1884, and later allocated funding for acquiring additional land adjacent to this property. This marked the start of Forest Park, which would steadily grow with further donations — including the largest donation by Barney — and land acquisitions throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Springfield Union praised Barney for his landscaping work in his obituary in 1916, writing: “Forest Park is Springfield’s great breathing ground, and a trip there always includes a visit to Barney’s front yard. There he showed his passionate love for nature and that he was an expert horticulturalist. He planted there rare shrubs and trees from Europe, Egypt, China, Japan and India, and there he planned and maintained lily ponds containing nearly all varieties of lilies. There, too, he maintained a lotus pond. Mr. Barney’s nature was a restless, untiring one, and he changed his lawns and flower gardens frequently. His taste ran strongly to mathematical arrangement of flower beds and shrubs, and one is constantly startled by coming suddenly on a stone deer or other piece of statuary.”
Today, the Carriage House is a frequent wedding and events venue, and is home to the Springfield Garden Club, which carries on the Barney legacy and manages the plantings and gardens around the structure.
The Aug. 24 fundraiser will conclude with a live operatic performance by youth artist Baillie DiStefano in the Carriage House ballroom.
Tickets to “Flora & Fauna: Historic Carriage House Tour & Garden Party Fundraiser” are $40 for Springfield Preservation Trust and Springfield Garden Club members and $50 for nonmembers, and can be purchased online at Eventbrite.com.
Summer florals and fauna-inspired patterns among guests is encouraged, to celebrate the “Flora & Fauna: A Forest Park Garden Party Fundraiser” theme.
For more information, visit the Springfield Preservation Trust’s website.
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