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JASMINE HILL GARDENS AND OUTDOOR MUSEUM
y Margaret Clevenger
On a hilltop in Alabama, just north of the state capital f Montgomery, a garden grows, born of love for the ind and a couple's devotion to one another.
Jasmine Hill Gardens and Outdoor Museum was Dunded in 1928 by Benjamin and Mary Fitzpatrick and as earned the nickname "Alabama's Little Comer of Jreece." Mary had been a schoolteacher in Birmingham nd Ben, grandson of Alabama Governor Benjamin itzpatrick, owned a chain of stores throughout the outh. In 1927, the Fitzpatricks sold their stores, retired, nd moved to Jasmine Hill. They began renovating the xir-room, 1830's cottage once intended to house a Confederate soldier and his bride. But their primary iterest was in nurturing the land and gardens of their ew home.
Ben and Mary frequently traveled to Europe and etore long Greece became one of their favorite estinations. During the next thirty five years they made lore than twenty trips to Greece and attended classes at le American School of Classical Studies at Athens, hey commissioned replicas of their favorite pieces of !reek sculpture and art for shipment to Alabama and lacement in their emerging garden museum.
One of the most impressive pieces, and the keystone f Jasmine Hill, is the world's only full-size replica of te Temple of Hera ruins. The Temple was considered to e among the most sacred places in Olympia, Greece. In ncient times, the Olympic torch was lit at the Altar of lera by using the rays of the sun. The flame was then arried to the adjacent stadium to mark the beginning of le Olympic games. The original Temple in Greece estroyed by an earthquake. The remains have been lithfully duplicated in an open grass field at Jasmine Hill, he Doric columns of the Temple rise several feet high nd a bust of Hera, wife of Zeus, watches over the area.
The king of the jungle is well-represented throughout le gardens. Lions of pink Sienna marble, terra cotta, nd stone have all found a niche at Jasmine Hill. The assive Lion of Delos is a copy of one of a row of nine nchaic lions found in 1906 by excavators on the island f Delos, Greece. The original is now in the Louvre.
In addition to the fine replicas, the Fitzpatricks also squired several original pieces of art. One such work is je 250 year old Egyptian Marble Fountain which once
decorated a harem in Cairo. Terra cotta vases around the fountain are from Tuscany.
A stroll up the steps of one walkway, guarded on either side by a row of stone lions, leads to an elegant marble bench, an original work from Florence, Italy.
This antique terra cotta dog is from a garden in Italy.