March is Women’s History Month, and while there are plenty of sites in town to highlight the invaluable work that women have done to forge St. Augustine into a town that could last 450 years, there is one site that is likely to be overlooked.
There’s a small gated garden downtown – you may have passed by with a Hyppo pop in hand and wondered how it came to be. You’re in luck.
It was in early 1965 that the St. Augustine Historical Restoration and Preservation Commission, deep in preparations for the upcoming 400th Anniversary celebrations in September, tasked Elizabeth Towers with spearheading a project to develop a parcel of land on the corner of St. George and Hypolita Streets, then occupied by an appliance store. Towers, the only female member of the Restoration Commission at the time, resolved to transform the corner into a Spanish-style garden. To accomplish this, she created the Hispanic Garden Committee, a group comprised entirely of women. The Committee coordinated with garden clubs and similar organizations to host luncheons, fashion shows, sales, and solicited private donations. One of the biggest patrons of the project was Jessie Ball duPont from Jacksonville, a designated Great Floridian and inductee to the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame, who personally funded about 60% of the total project. When all was said and done, $51,509.40 was raised and the construction began. Drusilla P. Gjoerloff and Lee W. Schmoll, the only two female landscape architects practicing in Florida at the time, were selected for the project.
Measuring about 76 x 82 feet, the “garden” was actually designed as a small plaza known as a “plazoleta” which was modeled after classic Spanish gardens, which historically take their cues from Roman-era patios. Flowering plants in ceramic vases dotted the space, with beds containing marigolds, palm trees, confederate jasmine, yaupon holly, and cabbage palm lining the perimeter. At the center lies an octagonal mosaic with Spanish motifs and a small pool (which was converted to a planter in 1977), a nod to water features that became prominent in the gardens of Spain during the Moorish occupation. On a pedestal at the center of the pool sits the crown jewel of the Hispanic Garden: a statue of Queen Isabella of Castile, sculpted and donated by famed artist Anna Hyatt Huntington. Huntington, among her many accomplishments, was the first woman to have a public sculpture on display in New York outside of Central Park, and in addition, that sculpture (Joan of Arc) was New York City’s first monument to depict a historical woman. A two-fer!
The Hispanic Garden was dedicated with an unveiling of the statute on September 5, 1965 as part of the formal 400th Anniversary celebrations even though work on the garden wasn’t officially completed until 2 years later. It was rededicated on May 2, 1967 with equal fanfare.
Downtown St. Augustine isn’t beautiful by accident, it’s beautiful because people put in the dedication and heart to make it so, people like Elizabeth Towers and all the women who turned this dream of an oasis on St. George Street into a reality.
Images courtesey of UFHSA Government House Research Collection
