About
Book Your MassageLambert Gardens and the Garden House
Andrew Lambert
In 1925, Andrew Lambert, a landscape gardener from Georgia, visited Portland and decided to stay. He gave his share of the family landscaping business to his brother and settled on SE 28th Avenue. In the late 1920s he bought about 25 acres of unused land from neighboring Reed College, which had farmed it for spinach and carrots, and began building a garden. Lambert Gardens was open to the public by 1930 and eventually covered some 30 acres.
The gardens
Lambert laid out the grounds as a sequence of themed gardens in English, French, Italian and Spanish styles, with a sunken rose garden, an Italian court, reflecting pools and a "Vest Pocket Garden" that showed how a small space could be planted. Peacocks, grey crowned cranes and flamingos roamed the grounds, and roses bloomed from April to November. Through the Depression, Lambert kept twenty landscapers employed.
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A Portland landmark
The gardens drew an estimated 50,000 to 75,000 visitors a year, most of them from out of town. Each June, Lambert reserved a plot for the Rose Festival court, and each Christmas the gardens held one of the largest illuminated displays in the city. Coins from the wishing well went to the Oregon School for the Blind. The grounds hosted weddings, visiting dignitaries and political speeches, and garden staff gave planting demonstrations on local television. From 1965, Portland schoolchildren toured the gardens free of charge.
Closing
By 1968, Lambert was in his eighties and could no longer maintain the gardens. He offered the land to the City of Portland as a public park; Mayor Terry Schrunk declined. The property was sold to developers, the roses were plowed under, and the plants, pots and statuary were auctioned off over several months. Apartment buildings now stand on most of the former gardens. Andrew Lambert died in January 1974.
The house
Lambert's house on SE 28th Avenue remained. It later housed a Christian ministry and is now home to Garden House Wellness, Heretic Coffee and Mosaic String Academy. The courtyard and the back lawn, ringed with roses and magnolia trees, are among the last remaining traces of the gardens, and the reason for the clinic's name.
The magnolia
A magnolia on the back lawn predates the apartments that replaced the gardens. A local story holds that Lambert drew the boundary of this lot around the tree because a bird was nesting in it. The story is unconfirmed, though Reed College's 2014 history of the gardens records a similar account: that Lambert once refused to sell a tree to a couple because a bird had made its nest there.
Sources
Lambert Gardens and the Garden House
Andrew Lambert
In 1925, Andrew Lambert, a landscape gardener from Georgia, visited Portland and decided to stay. He gave his share of the family landscaping business to his brother and settled on SE 28th Avenue. In the late 1920s he bought about 25 acres of unused land from neighboring Reed College, which had farmed it for spinach and carrots, and began building a garden. Lambert Gardens was open to the public by 1930 and eventually covered some 30 acres.
The gardens
Lambert laid out the grounds as a sequence of themed gardens in English, French, Italian and Spanish styles, with a sunken rose garden, an Italian court, reflecting pools and a "Vest Pocket Garden" that showed how a small space could be planted. Peacocks, grey crowned cranes and flamingos roamed the grounds, and roses bloomed from April to November. Through the Depression, Lambert kept twenty landscapers employed.
A Portland landmark
The gardens drew an estimated 50,000 to 75,000 visitors a year, most of them from out of town. Each June, Lambert reserved a plot for the Rose Festival court, and each Christmas the gardens held one of the largest illuminated displays in the city. Coins from the wishing well went to the Oregon School for the Blind. The grounds hosted weddings, visiting dignitaries and political speeches, and garden staff gave planting demonstrations on local television. From 1965, Portland schoolchildren toured the gardens free of charge.
Closing
By 1968, Lambert was in his eighties and could no longer maintain the gardens. He offered the land to the City of Portland as a public park; Mayor Terry Schrunk declined. The property was sold to developers, the roses were plowed under, and the plants, pots and statuary were auctioned off over several months. Apartment buildings now stand on most of the former gardens. Andrew Lambert died in January 1974.
The house
Lambert's house on SE 28th Avenue remained. It later housed a Christian ministry and is now home to Garden House Wellness, Heretic Coffee and Mosaic String Academy. The courtyard and the back lawn, ringed with roses and magnolia trees, are among the last remaining traces of the gardens, and the reason for the clinic's name.
The magnolia
A magnolia on the back lawn predates the apartments that replaced the gardens. A local story holds that Lambert drew the boundary of this lot around the tree because a bird was nesting in it. The story is unconfirmed, though Reed College's 2014 history of the gardens records a similar account: that Lambert once refused to sell a tree to a couple because a bird had made its nest there.