On the National and State Historic Registry, experience a self-guided tour through this 10-acre garden estate. Highlights include rare and native plants, statuary and Thomas Church architecture, Grounds and gift shop.
Lakewold Gardens
Address: 12317 Gravelly Lake Dr SW, Lakewood WA 98499
(Google Map)
Distance from Lakewood, Washington: 1.97 miles
Here are driving directions from Lakewood, WA, to 12317 Gravelly Lake Dr SW, Lakewood, WA 98499:
- Start in Lakewood, WA and head toward Gravelly Lake Dr SW.
- If you are near I-5, take Exit 124 for Gravelly Lake Dr SW.
- Merge onto Gravelly Lake Dr SW and continue heading west.
- Pass through the intersection at Veterans Drive SW.
- Continue on Gravelly Lake Dr SW for about 1 mile.
- The destination, 12317 Gravelly Lake Dr SW, will be on your right.
The property first began in 1908 as a 5 acre (20,000 m2) home site for Emma Alexander, who transferred the property to her son Hubbard Alexander and his wife Ruth Alexander. At this point the gardens were already well known in the area. The Alexanders purchased an adjacent site in 1918. In 1925 the property was sold to Major Everett Griggs and his wife, Grace, who renamed the property “Lakewold,” a middle-English word meaning “lake-woods.” In 1938 the property was sold again to G. Corydon and Eulalie Wagner, who began collecting plants and engaged Thomas Church as a landscape architect.
In 1987 Mrs. Wagner donated the estate to a non-profit organization, the Friends of Lakewold, stating, “As we become more and more city creatures, living in manmade surroundings, perhaps gardens will become even more precious to us, letting us remember that we began in the garden.
Lakewold Gardens was designed by the owner, Eulalie Wagner, with assistance from renowned landscape architect Thomas Church, to be a place for people, full of hidden spaces, eye-catching details and framed vistas. The gardens include a variety of gardening styles, from the European boxwood parterres and topiary, to Asian-inspired shade gardens. Plantings closer to the house are formal, whereas plantings down the slope towards Gravelly Lake are less formal. Rocks, streams, woodland areas, and mature trees, pathways, open lawns, and flower beds can all be found on the slope to the lake.
Gardens
Specialty gardens at Lakewold
- Boxwood Parterres – Boxwoods shaped into ground-level geometric patterns
- The Tom Gillies Hardy Fern Foundation Display Garden – hardy ferns and shade perennials from around the world.
- Knot garden – herbs planted and trained in a fashion that resembles a loosely tied ribbon
- Rhododendron Collection – hundreds of hybrid and species rhododendron.
- Rock Garden – gentians, saxifrages, dianthus, lewisias, dwarf rhododendrons, and alpine plants.
- Rose/Cutting Garden
- Screes – one devoted primarily to lewisias, another to fuzzy-foliage alpine plants, and a third to heath and primula.
- Waterfall – alpine stream with three waterfalls, bulbs, orchids, rhododendrons, azaleas, bog plants, and primulas.
- Woodland Garden – Douglas fir, with hellebores, orchids, trillium, erythronium, and primulas.
Washington State Champion trees
- Acer palmatum – Japanese Maple, see Circle Drive
- Acer palmatum ‘Atropurpureum’ – Red Japanese Maple
- Halesia caroliniana var. monticola – Mountain Silverbell
- Ilex x altaclerensis camelliafolia – Camellia-leaved Highclere,
- Ilex crenata – Japanese Holly
- Metasequoia glyptostroboides – Dawn Redwood
- Parrotia persica – Persian Ironwood
- Prunus lusitanica – Portugal Cherry
- Prunus ‘Pandora’ – Pandora Cherry
- Prunus ‘Tai Haku’- Tai Haku Cherry
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