KINGWOOD CENTER—

This 47 acre horticultural estate continues to be one of the Mansfield area’s premier attractions. The mansion, pictured above, was built in 1926 for Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kelly King.

King was hired as the Ohio Brass Company’s first electrical engineer in 1893. He led the company to being a leader in the manufacturing of electrical fittings for railroads and trolleys, finally serving as the company’s president and chairman of the board.

The estate was opened as a public garden in 1953, one year after Mr. King’s death.

In addition to the wide variety of outdoor gardens punctuated by a delightful collection of water features the facility does many programs. Recent examples include; Botanical Illustration, Heiretzu—the Japanese one-row style, Butterfly Gardening, Incredible, Edible Flowers and, Harvesting and Drying Flowers and Foliages.

All annual plants used on the grounds are cultivated in the facility’s expansive greenhouses.

Further, Kingwood contains an 8,500 volume library; known as one of the best gardening libraries in Ohio. And, it is a lending library with its catalog integrated with that of the Mansfield-Richland County Public Library.

Spend a few hours there from time to time. It’s like giving yourself a present.

They are on the web here: http://www.kingwoodcenter.org/

Photography Note: The intense blue sky was achieved with the use of a polarizing filter. Two large trees in front of the mansion now mostly block the building from view far enough south to include some of the lawn and gardens in the foreground. This photo was done close under one of those trees with a wide angle lens then the skew function of Photoshop was used to correct the vertical distortion.