Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden - Lewis Ginter

Lewis Ginter

The millionaire’s avid interest in planned, landscaped suburban development began during a visit to his company’s Australian office in 1888. The attractive residential developments in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne prompted Major Ginter’s desire to create the same settings in Richmond. (The handsome gilt-framed watercolor of Sydney Harbor, which hangs in the hallway of the Bloemendaal House at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden was presented to Ginter by his Australian employees.)

On returning to Richmond, the Major began acquiring vast areas on the northside and a country home of his own, Westbrook. (The estate became Westbrook Sanatorium in 1911 and was torn down in 1975.) Forming the Brook Turnpike Company, Ginter repaired Brook Road at his own expense, obtained a charter for the Bloomendale Stock Company and developed the Ginter Park and Sherwood Park residential districts. Northside was chosen as a locale because of Ginter’s belief that it was “a foolish waste of eyesight to drive east into the rising sun each morning and drive west into the setting sun each evening.”

Major Ginter’s interest in northside had surfaced in 1884 when he purchased approximately 10 acres (40,000 m2) along the west side of Uffnum Brook from the heirs of Mildred King Ladd.

Here he constructed the Lakeside Wheel Club.

The clubhouse he built was a one-story Victorian structure surrounded on two sides by a covered veranda. The original concrete approach walks with their inlaid leaf patterns, the steps, concrete newel posts and wrought iron lamp standards remain today. The adjacent valley and waterways had long been the site of a millpond and were dammed to create Lakeside Lake.

In the Gay Nineties cycling was a popular sport and cyclists, cheered on by Richmond belles, peddled out to the Club on the cinder Missing Link Trail which ran along the Boulevard and Hermitage Road. Spectators of the cycling sport rode out on the Lakeside trolley and were discharged at the end of the line near the dam. After the grueling ride from town, cyclists could sit on the Wheel Club’s long gallery and refresh themselves with homemade ice cream, while boaters drifted on the lake below.

Earlier, north of the lake, Ginter has established Lakeside Park, with a zoo and Richmond’s first professional nine hole golf course. The granite base of the bear pit and many fine specimen trees planted in an arboretum setting remain the present day Jefferson Lakeside Club.

Lewis Ginter died of diabetes at Westbrook in October 1897 at the age of 73. An obituary noted that “Death could not have torn from Richmond a more useful and beloved citizen.” A large portion of his estate, as well as his keen desire to enhance the life of Richmonders, was inherited by his niece, Grace Arents. After her uncle’s death, Arents remodeled the Wheel Club in Dutch colonial style, named it Bloemendaal Farm and made it her home. Bloemendaal Farm soon became a model for the best agricultural practices of the day. In her will, Arents honored her beloved uncle by giving Bloemendaal Farm to the City of Richmond as a botanical garden and public park in memory of her Uncle Lewis Ginter to be known as Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.