♪ ♪ <narrator> The South Carolina Low Country is a place where natural beauty and history coalesce.

♪ ♪ Beneath the low hanging live oaks, time stands still.

The busy clamor of the outside world evaporates into a whisper.

Nowhere is this embodied more fully than in the nine-thousand-acre sculpture garden south of Murrells Inlet known as Brookgreen Gardens.

♪ Here a collection of American figurative sculpture is set in one of the most pristine wildlife preserves in the country.

It all started when the founders of Brookgreen Gardens, Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington traveled South in 1930 and purchased a stretch of land between the Waccamaw River and the Atlantic Ocean.

♪ What followed was, as Archer Huntington described it, a "“quiet joining of hands between science and art.

"” From Brookgreen's humble beginnings, to its current status as a national historic landmark, lies a deeper story about the visionaries who made it all possible.

♪ ♪ (film projector whirs) ♪ When the Huntingtons first surveyed the property, they found a sleeping beauty that needed to be brought back to life.

♪ In the 18th century, along the Waccamaw River in Georgetown County, wealthy rice planters like William Alston established plantations.

Alston's son Joseph served in the South Carolina House of Representatives and was elected Governor of South Carolina in 1812.

His wife Theodosia was the daughter of Aaron Burr.

Just after his inauguration as Governor, Theodosia boarded the schooner, Patriot sailing to New York City to visit her father.

The ship mysteriously disappeared during the voyage, and neither ship nor anyone on board were ever heard from again.

♪ The four plantations that comprise Brookgreen today Laurel Hill, Springfield, Brookgreen, and The Oaks produced enormous quantities of rice.

<Veronica> Most of the plantations, like Brookgreen came into being because of crops that plantation owners felt that would be cost effective and profitable.

About the mid-1700s rice was introduced as that crop.

♪ <Ron> Rice became the "cash" crop during the 1700s and 1800s because of the skills and knowledge of those West Africans brought from countries where rice had been grown successfully for hundreds and thousands of years.

<Veronica> They brought their culture, beliefs and practices that became a major part of plantations like Brookgreen.

Actually, Brookgreen Plantation became the largest of the rice plantations, numbering some 1,000 slaves at the time.

It made their planters who owned rice plantations some of the richest men in the world.

<narrator> The descendants of these enslaved West Africans are known today as the Gullah Geechee people.

The Gullah Geechee corridor stretches from the sea islands of North Carolina to Florida.

<Ron> These islands were surrounded by waterways.

So, whereas there may have been plantations with 100,000 or more Africans speaking a certain way and observing certain Afrocentric practices in those communities, there were 100 or fewer White people.

That's why in Charleston, Georgetown, Savannah, Georgia, and other communities of the now Gullah Geechee cultural Heritage Corridor, there are older Whites who speak Geechee or Gullah fluently because they were raised at a time where there was a large West African presence in their communities, and their heritage has influenced American heritage.

Today at Brookgreen Gardens, African-American history and culture are explored and brought to life at the Wall Low Country Center, the Low Country Trail, and the Gullah Geechee Garden.

♪ Programs like the Trekker Excursion, allow guests to explore the locations of the four plantations that make up Brookgreen Gardens.

♪ <Tom> We have a strong emphasis on history here at Brookgreen.

It originally started more than anything else as a sculpture garden, but, you know, over the course of time, they even decided to invoke history as part of the programs that we do here.

Most people would look at this cemetery and go, Well, it's an active cemetery.

Why are there trees and brush and vegetation, things growing all over the place in here?

Why isn't it neatly manicured like most cemeteries that you see?

<narrator> The Gullah Geechee burial customs were very different from those of the European settlers of America.

They didn't believe in building walls, cutting trees, or altering the landscape in any way.

Graves are placed in wooded areas, and many are marked with personal items.

<Ron> A burial practice of Gullah Geechee people has been when an individual dies, his or her personal effects will be placed atop the grave.

A cook's spoon or a mixing bowl or a pipe or a fishing pole or a child's toy.

The reason is, it's believed that the person's spirit would not stay within the ground, but it would be released and should feel at home among his or her belongings.

<Tom> We feel like it's a very important thing to educate the public about these sort of things, which I think a lot of people in many cases probably would never see unless they maybe came to Brookgreen Gardens.

♪ ♪ <narrator> Archer Milton Huntington was a wealthy philanthropist, art collector, and founder of the Hispanic Society of America in New York City.

In 1921, he met artist Anna Vaughn Hyatt and commissioned her to create a medal for his library and museum.

Already a well-established sculptor, Anna had exhibited her work in New York and abroad.

<Page> Anna Hyatt Huntington was a very renowned artist prior to her marriage to Archer Huntington.

He was a philanthropist and they worked together in New York before they got married, and at the time she was one of the most successful women in the country by her earnings.

Archer Huntington's family fortune from the railroad industry was vast, but Anna's successful art career made her financially independent.

In 1915, Anna was listed as one of only ten women in America earning more than $50,000 a year.

♪ Her talent as a sculptor was exceptional.

<Robin> Anna Hyatt Huntington was a barrier breaker herself with some of her early, monumental pieces, such as Joan of Arc that was commissioned for New York City.

That was the first sculpture placed in New York of a female subject by a female sculptor, and it also was the first to really show Joan of Arc in the proper period armor.

Anna did a lot of historical research in order to get all of that correct, and that was something that she always did.

<narrator> Anna's study of anatomy was meticulous, and she had a gift for bringing animals to life, especially horses.

<Robin> Her expertise was figurative sculpture.

She was what they call an animalier.

She focused on realistic sculptures of animals.

<narrator> In 1927, Anna was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a condition that would profoundly affect her career and life.

♪ <Robin> She did go to a sanatorium in Switzerland for what was considered a cure at that time, but she was never truly free of the disease, and she had to be very careful not to...overextend herself.

She did everything in moderation, and she was disciplined.

<narrator> While looking for a winter home with a climate more suitable for her condition, the Huntingtons discovered Brookgreen.

<Robin> We do know that what most likely brought Archer and Anna Huntington here was an advertisement in the New York Times.

This had been a hunt club, and the stock market crash in 1929 necessitated the sale of the property.

They came to visit.

They docked in Georgetown and then came in a small boat up the Waccamaw River because that was the only way to get here in those days, by river.

<Page> They were looking for a place where she could sculpt and get better weather, and they fell in love with this piece of property.

So, they purchased the property in 1930 and realized how very special it was.

<Robin> She was enchanted.

It was so different from her native Cambridge, Massachusetts.

That evening, after her first visit here, she wrote a letter to her sister.

♪ <Anna re-enactment> <Anna re-enactment> ♪ <narrator> After purchasing the land, the Huntingtons began working on their vision for America's premier sculpture garden.

It would require a tremendous amount of labor.

South Carolina's Low Country, like many places during the 1930s, was feeling the pressure of the Great Depression.

The construction of Brookgreen Gardens helped stimulate the struggling Georgetown economy, providing jobs, transportation and electricity.

Horticulturist, Frank Green Tarbox, Jr. collaborated with Anna Huntington to design the Gardens, incorporating what remained from the original landscape with many new plants acquired from regional and national sources.

While Brookgreen Gardens was under construction, Archer went to work building the couple's winter home, known today as Atalaya.

He chose a Spanish revival style for the structure.

with stucco walls, red clay tile roofs, and impressive towers that offered panoramic views of the surrounding salt marshes and the Atlantic Ocean.

Huntington completed the home in just two years.

Today Atalaya, serves as a museum in Huntington Beach State Park.

♪ On July 13th, 1931, Brookgreen Gardens was incorporated as a nonprofit organization, and the following year it opened to the public.

♪ <Robin> From the beginning, it had three primary purposes: to exhibit American figurative sculpture, but also to preserve the plants and animals native to the southeast, and what was so different being a sculpture garden is that the artworks were placed within nature.

♪ <narrator> In the beginning, the Garden's collections consisted solely of Anna's work, but it wasn't long before the Huntingtons started to include the art of other American sculptors.

♪ <Robin> She was looking for quality in the sculpture.

She wanted good sculpture.

Once Brookgreen was established and she began building the collection, there were certain artists that she wanted to include.

She knew that, and she requested pieces from those artists or from galleries who handled their work if the artist was deceased.

She wasn't looking specifically for male or female artists, and even though she didn't realize at the time that she was doing this, she was acquiring a lot of work by women.

<Page> Anna Huntington as one of the most successful sculptors of her time and also in founding the Garden created a collection that included many women artists, and our national historic designation is actually a recognition of the women in the collection.

So as the first woman director of the institution, it was a very meaningful connection for me to come to a place that was founded in recognition of women's history.

<Robin> And the collection has continued to grow through the years, adhering to her standards, her original standards, and I think that it's done very well in upholding what she had envisioned originally.

♪ ♪ <narrator> Because of their affinity for animals, Anna and Archer included a native wildlife park in the development of Brookgreen Gardens.

In the 1950s, a nature trail was added to showcase the animals, which expanded over the years until 2000, when the Low Country Zoo officially opened to the public.

The zoo was designed to be a sanctuary for native species with habitats that mimic their natural environment, and has become a key player in other conservation efforts.

♪ <Andrea> The Huntingtons were first developing the property, and it was actually in a different location than where it is right now.

In the 70s, they moved a few of the exhibits over here where the present zoo is.

Anna Hyatt Huntington was an animal lover.

She did a lot of her sculptures of animals, and so she liked having animals here at Brookgreen.

So, it's also part of our mission that we're exhibiting animals from the Southeast or the Low Country.

♪ If you're walking through the zoo, pretty much the first area that you come to from the parking lot is our Floyd Family Heritage Farm, which is a bit separate from the zoo because it's domestic animals.

They're all animals that are considered heritage breeds, which means that they were brought here by settlers a long time ago.

♪ After you leave the Floyd Family Heritage Farm and you go down the trail, then you start getting into the Low Country Zoo exhibits, which starts out with a very large aviary.

It's like 90 feet tall and it's got a boardwalk through it over a natural swamp, and it has herons and egrets species.

Then after you go through that aviary, you come to our otter exhibit.

So, we actually have two otter exhibits.

We have an underwater one with a glass viewing of the pool.

So, you can see the otters underwater.

Our second otter exhibit is tidal fed, and so, when we have a high tide, it's got a lot of water in it, and when we have a low tide, it's got low amount of water in it, and so, it's a very natural exhibit.

As you leave the otter exhibit, you'll come to our red and gray fox exhibit.

You'll need to look up in the trees because the gray foxes like to climb.

So, they will sit up in the trees on the limb, and then from there you go up the hill and you go into the waterfowl aviary where we have eight species of waterfowl that frequent this area.

There aren't many of them that are considered native because so many birds migrate to this area.

It's a beautiful piece of property.

I like that it's very natural and that we have a pretty good collection of animals that we're able to manage, and I have a great crew that works with me.

♪ ♪ <Narrator> Archer and Anna Huntington devoted their lives and resources to the promotion of art, conservation, and education, and their legacy serves as an inspiration for future generations.

Volunteers at Brookgreen come from all walks of life and give their time, skills, and energy to honor the Huntingtons' legacy.

They work in every area of the Gardens, including the greenhouse, and they are involved in special projects with Brookgreen's horticulture staff.

♪ <Judy> There are so many different things for volunteers to do.

That's because of our mission.

Our volunteers work in the gardens, planting, cutting, trimming.

They work with our animals, everything from zoo strolling to giving tours for the public, but I especially love to work all of our private events and special events... like Night of a Thousand Candles, which is our major Christmas light show.

<narrator> For three weekends in December, the Gardens are transformed into a winter wonderland, with over 2,700 hand-lit candles illuminating the night.

The Night of a Thousand Candles, now in its 23rd year, introduces guests from all over the world to Brookgreen.

♪ <Judy> We wrap trees.

We have dangling lights from trees.

It really is a festival of lights, very inspirational.

♪ To be in the gardens after dark, with most of the light just coming from, dangling Christmas lights of all different colors it's absolutely magnificent.

♪ Night of a Thousand Candles has become so popular that it is our single largest event.

So last year, we had over 75,000 visitors.

♪ ♪ <narrator> What began as a simple idea to complement the natural beauty of the Low Country has blossomed into a vibrant community of artists, educators, and nature lovers.

♪ <Page> Brookgreen Gardens is one of the most unique places in the country, in the world.

It is a reflection of the spirit of these two amazing people, but since then has gone on to be a world class botanical garden, a native animal zoo that is accredited by ACA, a historic site where we celebrate Gullah Geechee culture as well as the history of South Carolina.

<Ron> I am fulfilled with the work I've done here, because I'm passing on information about...heritage, history, which is very important.

As I walked down the Low Country Trail before it was established, I could hear the voices of ancestors saying, "“We glad oona come here, tell the world '‘bout we.

"” So, that's what I've been doing.

Telling the world about the heritage of Gullah Geechie people.

<Veronica> Brookgreen, growing up sitting around listening to my mom and all of them talk about what it was like.

I loved the attachment they had.

♪ <Tom> There's a great satisfaction in, you know, sort of educating people and bringing this whole thing to light.

<Judy> Actually, I was inspired by the Huntington's vision to create this perpetual place of beauty that is serene and peaceful.

<Robin> I never thought that I would be here for 47 years, but if you've been to Brookgreen, you'll understand its magic.

There is a serenity in addition to the beauty here that is like no other.

I'm happy to have been here this long and I'm going to keep going.

♪ >> Like many of you, I visited Brookgreen Gardens back in the 1960s The last time was about 5 or 6 years ago.

Wow!

From the original purpose, the original garden to it's mission today, particularly with regard to history and culture and education, it's quite a change.

It's a beautiful South Carolina experience and how that garden developed and the gift that was made to the people of South Carolina by the Huntingtons, is quite a treasure.

♪ <narrator> From the exquisite sculptures to botanical wonders and diverse wildlife, Brookgreen Gardens continues to inspire and delight visitors from all over the world.

Its founders, Archer and Anna Huntington would be so proud of what their vision has become.

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