Garvan Woodland Gardens

The gardens began as the personal project of Verna Cook Garvan, heir to a family lumber and business fortune, who bought this lakeside land and spent much of her later life designing gardens across it. Working over decades, she shaped the peninsula's slopes, water features, and plantings, developing an eye for how gardens could sit lightly within a native forest rather than replace it.

Before her death, Garvan arranged to leave the property to the University of Arkansas so that it would be preserved and opened to the public. The university's Fay Jones School of Architecture took a leading role in its development, and the gardens opened to visitors in the early 2000s, carrying forward Garvan's vision of a woodland shaped by a careful human hand.

The garden's signature structure is the Anthony Chapel, a soaring sanctuary of wood and glass that stands more than fifty feet tall amid the surrounding pines. Its slender timber columns branch overhead like the trees around it, and its glass walls dissolve the boundary between inside and forest, so that a visitor seems to stand within the woodland rather than apart from it.

The chapel reflects the influence of the celebrated Arkansas architect Fay Jones, whose organic, forest-inspired designs, including the famous Thorncrown Chapel near Eureka Springs, set the tone for a distinctly Arkansas style of sacred architecture. A popular venue for weddings, the Anthony Chapel is also simply a place to sit quietly and take in the light filtering through the trees.

Beyond the chapel, the gardens unfold across the peninsula in a series of distinct areas. A Japanese-inspired garden centers on koi ponds and arched bridges, waterfalls tumble down rocky slopes, and formal beds burst with tulips in spring and camellias in the cooler months. Native azaleas and dogwoods bring the woodland to life along the paths.

Trails lead out to the shoreline of Lake Hamilton, where overlooks take in the water and the surrounding hills. The paths climb and wind across the point, so a full visit involves a fair bit of walking, but benches and quiet corners invite you to slow down and linger over a particular pond or view.

Spring is the garden's showpiece, when tens of thousands of tulips bloom alongside azaleas and dogwoods and the whole peninsula turns vivid. Summer is green and shaded, with the lake breezes taking some edge off the Arkansas heat and water features at their most refreshing.

Fall brings warm color to the hardwoods and thinner crowds, a fine time for a quiet walk. Winter has become one of the garden's busiest seasons thanks to its elaborate holiday light display, when the trees, bridges, and chapel are strung with lights and the woodland glows after dark.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.