A Day in the Gardens

Friday August 13th we went to Stan Hywet Hall to take pictures in the beautiful gardens. We got some really amazing shots, and I narrowed them down as much as I could, but from four different cameras, there were probably close to 700 pictures that day. Here are the best of the best...

Sage, Eliza, Lloyd and Isabella...

and there's Audrey.

Eliza, Isabella and Sage. The kids loved this bridge, but especially walking through the tunnel underneath.

 

Papa's girl.

Discovering the secret garden (actually called the English Garden).

 

They loved walking all around the paths and exploring in here.

 

Peek-a-boo!

We tried to get all the kids together on these steps, but Audrey kept climbing up them. Later when everyone had moved on, Audrey sat down and said cheese - go figure!

 

Audrey, Matilda and Kyrie

still missing Audrey...

Amanda and Audrey. Peek-a-boo never gets old.

LOVE this one!

 

This was so great because Eliza didn't want to smile for anymore pictures, but Amanda got her to pretend she was playing hide and seek. When she looked up after counting to ten, Amanda caught a special smile.

She only smiled here when I told her to say "Daddy" and that we would send it to him.

After a couple hours, we took a break to have lunch back by the front entrance. This was a bench right outside and I thought the building looked nice in the background.

Kyrie and her Daddy.

Papa and Kyrie

 

There were life sized chess and checkers sets that all the kids loved right after lunch. Audrey couldn't even move the chess pieces, so the checkers were more her size.

Eliza and Amanda

**HUGS**

 

Audrey got detoured.

 

 

This small fountain was Audrey's favorite part of the day! She loved splashing her hands in it and watching the ripples.

Finally - all the cousins in one picture!

 

My beautiful girls!

After the group shots, the kids all got a penny to throw in the fountain.

Checking out the flowers outside the greenhouse.

There was a stage set up for a play that evening, but it was empty during the day. Eliza sang twinkle, twinkle little star.

Eliza and I

Audrey and I

Your castle my princess...

Heading home after one long, beautiful day.

History of Stan Hywet (from the website www.stanhywet.org)

In 1898, F.A. Seiberling founded The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, naming it after Charles Goodyear, the inventor of the vulcanization process for rubber. It was the turn of the twentieth century and the Industrial Age was forming modern America where cities grew and industries flourished. Akron, Ohio was no exception – it built its foundation on the rubber industry to become the “Rubber Capital of the World.”

Like many of his industrialist peers, F.A. Seiberling had architectural aspirations. Between 1912 and 1915, he and his wife, Gertrude, built their country estate and named it “Stan Hywet” (Old English forstone quarry) the property’s most prominent natural feature. While European country houses were based on generations of title and wealth, the American country estates were built by self-made financial giants. Vanderbilt’s Biltmore, Rockefeller’s Kykuit, and Hearst’s San Simeon, are well-known examples.

The short-lived American Country Estate building boom began to decline in the 1920s, and by the 1960s many of the most elegant homes ever built in this country had been lost to the wrecking ball. Stan Hywet remains as one of the most important historic estates to endure from this bygone era.

In 1957, the Seiberling family donated Stan Hywet to a non-profit organization so that the public could enjoy and experience a noteworthy chapter in American history. Above the Manor House entryway, the crest bearing the motto Non Nobis Solum (Not for Us Alone), welcomes guests as warmly today as it did a century ago.

Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens is Akron’s only National Historic Landmark and Save America’s Treasuresproject. It is accredited by the American Association of Museums.