Hopelands Gardens and Rye Patch: The Friends’ Story

Description

This book tells a story about Hopelands Gardens and Rye Patch and how these properties came to be a public garden in the heart of the City of Aiken. Built shortly after the Civil War to attract wealthy northern sportsmen to Aiken, S. C., Rye Patch began as a bed and breakfast to house those looking for polo ponies. The Hopelands property was purchased in 1897 by C. Oliver Iselin, and the residence was built around the turn of the 19th century. The book explores the intertwined histories of these properties with the City of Aiken, S. C., from a rural community, to a resort for the Winter Colony (1890 – 1945), through the development of the Savannah River Plant in the early 1950s that transformed Aiken into a city with the highest number of Ph.D.s in the United States. The properties owned by Hope Goddard Iselin and Dorothy Knox Goodyear Rogers that were acquired by the City of Aiken provide an image of how private citizens work with City officials to maintain and develop a large 24-acre park for the benefit of the public.