The garden that started it all: Kingwood restores its Formal Gardens

MANSFIELD — Pieces of Charles Kelley King’s original vision are coming back into place at Kingwood Center Gardens.

Restoration work is bringing historic details back to the landscape nearly a century after King created the Formal Gardens.

The Formal Gardens has a special place in King’s legacy because they were the garden that started it all. Executive Director Josh Steffen said Kingwood developed the other gardens after King’s death because he had no major plans to expand the grounds beyond the Formal Gardens.

Original stonework is returning to the garden, historic sculptures are being restored and workers are transforming the footprint of King’s former swimming pool into a shallow reflection pool. A rebuilt trellis will once again frame the space between the bathhouses.

The restoration began with site preparation in June 2024, and crews expect to finish most construction by the end of 2026. Kingwood plans to complete the final plantings in spring 2027, celebrating with a ribbon cutting.

(Story continues below. Images show restoration area at Kingwood Center Gardens. Credit: Larry Phillips)

Restoring a garden built around a swimming pool

King began construction of Kingwood Hall in 1926 and worked with landscape architects Pitkin and Mott to create the Formal Gardens at the same time. The gardens combine the arts-and-crafts style with neoclassical influences. The plot originally stretched from the Sunken Garden through the former pool area and toward Pan the Piper.

“The garden built around the swimming pool is a series of garden rooms,” Steffen said.

Those rooms create different experiences as visitors move through the sloped landscape, Steffen said. Some use high walls to create an inward-looking space, while others use low walls and hedges that allow visitors to look beyond the garden.

The garden also reflects the arts-and-crafts movement, which emphasized handcrafted work and local artistic traditions at a time when industrialization threatened those practices.

“It speaks to our collective concern about authenticity vs. mass production,” Steffen said.

Director of Development and Marketing Brenda Nelson said King balanced his work as an innovator at Ohio Brass with his vision for the arts-and-crafts style at Kingwood.

Steffen said after King died the first board filled in his swimming pool as it converted the private estate into a public garden.

“This garden is the seed that started everything,” Steffen said. “We exist as a garden because of a swimming pool, which is just kind of an interesting, ironic piece of history.”

The restoration team has also worked to preserve original materials wherever possible. Workers removed, cataloged and inventoried bluestone and other pavers so they could reuse them in the rebuilt garden.

“There’s a significant amount of statuary throughout the formal gardens that has been restored, rebuilt, recreated, had pieces and parts of some that were nearly lost through the years that they’ve been able to recast in bronze instead of the original lead or concrete,” Nelson said. “Adding that art touch back into the garden is a significant part of this.”

The planting plan follows the original designs as a guide, but the team has adjusted some selections when the original plants no longer exist commercially or pose invasive concerns.

Instead, the team looked at characteristics such as flower color, fragrance and the role a plant played in the garden.

Stone, sculpture and a trellis return

The Sunken Garden and Circle Pool have undergone extensive reconstruction, with new plantings and sod bringing the areas back to life. Workers also rebuilt the stairs and planting beds leading toward Pan the Piper, reusing much of the original stone.

“To see that stonework come back from what it’s had, people are going to think it’s new, but it was original,” Nelson said. 

This garden is the seed that started everything.

josh steffen, executive director

The restoration also brings historic artwork back into the garden. Sculptor Mike Major has worked on pieces including Lady of Gallardias and Satyr, while also recreating the missing Herm of Pan sculpture.

A new bronze shell will return to the Shell Fountain, using the original lead shell as a guide. Workers also will recreate the fountain’s lion’s-head waterspout in bronze.

“The artwork is important to this garden and to this story,” Steffen said, noting King commissioned or purchased the pieces himself.

The trellis between the bathhouses also has received significant attention. Studer-Obringer rebuilt it with redwood using historic photographs as a guide and restored it to its historically appropriate gray-blue color.

“It’s a piece of artwork, that trellis, between the bathhouses will now provide the framing for the reflection pool that will go in the footprint of that original swimming pool,” Nelson said.

The team used archived pieces of the original trellis to help guide the new latticework, making the structure a hand-crafted piece rather than a mass-produced replacement.

“So when Brenda says that the trellis is a piece of art, it really literally is,” Steffen said.

Kingwood’s restoration plans also include drainage, masonry, water features, walkways, irrigation and infrastructure improvements. The project aims to restore historic sightlines and garden features while improving accessibility.

The project grew from a 2002 preservation and restoration study commissioned by former Kingwood Executive Director Chuck Gleaves. Steffen said architect of record Dan Seckle used the study’s schematics to develop the construction-detail drawings used by Studer-Obringer, the project’s general contractor.

Kingwood is handling the planting work, while Spring Electric, GM Excavation and Pacific Impressions also have contributed to the restoration.

The project relies on private funding, including donations from members, board members, staff and the community, along with support from the trust.

“We’re trying to be very careful stewards of the resources that we have. That’s how we’ve been able to embark on this project using strictly private funding,” Steffen said. 

Still, finishing the construction will not mark the end of the work.

As the plants grow and mature, gardeners will continue shaping the landscape and caring for it as a living art form.

“That’s what’s fun about gardening. It’s not just planting plants, there’s a process,” Steffen said.

For now, the Formal Gardens remain Kingwood’s focus as the historic landscape moves closer to looking — and growing — like the garden King envisioned a century ago.

“We don’t build a garden, we birth it,” Steffen said. “Once it’s built, you have to grow it to maturation, just like you do any child.”