Day Trips

Chandor Gardens in Weatherford mixes the open space of a formal English garden with the intimacy of a Chinese garden and transformed one man's dream into a magical, picturesque setting.

The redbrick paths wind through the thick forest of complementing and competing textures and colors. There is the sound of running water everywhere, but you can see only a few of the eight water features at a time. The 3.5-acre garden seems much larger with its many rooms formed with greenery.

"My favorite spot is the small stone bridge over the canal near the waterfall," says Karen Nantz, coordinator of the facility for the city of Weatherford. The soft gurgle of the water and the scent of pine and honeysuckle make it a special place.

For all its beauty, Chandor Gardens was nearly lost.

The winding path the garden followed that became what we enjoy today began in 1936. Douglas G. Chandor was a world-renowned, English-born painter when he married Ina Kuteman Hill of Weatherford in 1935. During his lifetime, he painted presidents, prime ministers, and the only formal portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt. His last portrait was of Queen Elizabeth II.

After spending a decade and a half building the gardens, which he called White Shadows, Chandor died in 1953 at the age of 55. Ina tried to maintain the masterpiece, at one time charging $1 a head to wander the grounds, until she passed away in 1978.

When Melody and Chuck Bradford purchased the property in 1994, Chandor's former home and studio were in danger of being bulldozed, and the grounds were overgrown. While clearing the invasive plants, cleaning the ponds, and replanting new flowers and bushes, the Bradfords left the personal touches that Chandor put into his construction project. They sold the property to the city in 2002.

"Mr. Chandor was a very eccentric kind of guy, shall we say," Nantz says. "If he liked something, he did it, whether it made sense or not."

When the neighborhood children started sneaking over a fence into the gardens, Chandor built them a gate. In the redbrick path to the garage, he wrote a love note in Latin to his wife using yellow bricks for the letters. The retaining walls and fountains are decorated with soda bottles, marbles, and other treasures he found. The docent-led tours offer a fun look at the artist who turned his talent to a different style of artistry.

Chandor Gardens is at the end of Lee Street, a few blocks southwest of the county courthouse. The gardens are the setting for about 50 weddings a year. The public is welcome to explore the gardens April through November on Saturdays from 9am to 3pm, Sundays from 1 to 5pm, and during the week by appointment. Admission is $5 for everyone older than 12 years old. For information on visiting the gardens, call 817/613-1700 or go to www.chandorgardens.com.

927th in a series. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of "Day Trips" 101-200, is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.