06/11/2026
SEE THESE GARDENS THIS WEEKEND!
While we think of Newport and New York when we think of Guilded Age mansions, northern titans of industry also built opulent “winter cottages" and estates across the South to escape the cold. Both Augusta and Aiken served as premier winter resorts, Augusta with a focus on golfing and Aiken a winter equestrian colony where the likes of the Vanderbilts and Astors resided. Thanks to Jenks Farmer, we’ll visit them this weekend.
While technically an antebellum mansion, the gardens at Green Court were created by Henry Crowell of Chicago, the founder of Quaker Oats Company, who bought the property in 1909 and wintered there for nearly 40 years. An acclaimed gardener himself, Crowell commissioned Rose Standish Nichols, a famous Boston landscape architect, to design the
lush Green Court gardens, which are being lovingly renovated by the current owners.
Sandhurst, in Aiken, a true Gilded Age mansion, was built in 1900 and designed by Hoppen and Koen, protégés of Stanford White, a premier Gilded Age architect working primarily in New York and Newport. Read about Jenks’s renovation of the garden here: https://open.substack.com/pub/jenksfarmer/p/formality-out-meadow-in?selection=79fc0707-34e0-48b3-ba27-621b5de748b5&r=7vf7a&utm_medium=ios.
Join us on Georgia Perennials “Jenks Farmer & Friends Field Trip” this weekend. https://www.georgiaperennial.org/story/486795