I was recently contacted through this blog by the grand-daughter of John Dean, who lived in the wonderful waterfront Bellair bluff house (see earlier post here) located in Eagle's Nest Gardens prior to Mr. Alvord (who developed the garden as an attraction). Her grandfather built most of the wooden elements of the gardens: the little temples, pagodas, bridges, etc. Her father was born in the house in 1930 (note: what a great place to start your life!). She refers to her father's childhood home as the grove house. In fact, she has extensive family in the area dating back more than 150 years!
She writes “Yes my dad has lots of memories of playing in the gardens — taking my grandfather his lunch, having tea with the aunties at the little Japanese teahouse… he also remembered distinctively the "Hound of the Baskervilles," so I was tickled when I found a picture of it. My grandfather had found a large eagle's nest that had blown down out of a tall tree during a storm and had climbed back up the tree to reposition it — amazingly enough, the eagles had returned. Considering my grandfather was only about 5'-5" and eagle's nests are very large and heavy that was quite an accomplishment.” (Electrospark's note: Bald Eagles build the largest nests in the world that are made by a single pair of birds. Some nests weigh over a thousand pounds. A large nest could be 12' deep.)
It's great to hear from people with personal stories connected to history such as yours. Thanks for sharing the photos and the stories with us, Lisa!
This photo (circa 1937) shows an exterior treatment given to the Dean/Alvord house by Mr. Dean to make it look tropical by using bamboo as exterior cladding. There was no power on the property, so Mr. Dean had the fabricate all the bamboo by hand.
Trolleys came here from the lavish Belleview Biltmore resort hotel; note the upper-class clothing on the visitors in this photo.
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