THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 13, 1995 TAG: 9510130536
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Celebrating the grand opening Sunday of Baker Hall Visitor Center, the Norfolk Botanical Garden will offer free admission from 8:30 a.m. to sunset.
The first major building constructed there in 30 years, the 12,000-square-foot Visitor Center will house a main hall, a gateway to the garden with a video introducing it.
The $2.9 million center also will feature an audio/visual room, exhibit and office space, a catering kitchen, tour operations and a gift shop four times the old one's size.
Groundbreaking took place May 17, 1994. Donations from individuals, businesses, organizations and foundations, along with matching funds from the city of Norfolk, helped make the building a reality.
A gift of $1 million from Norfolk residents Isaac and Sarah Lee Baker marked the start of the garden's current $5 million capital and endowment campaign.
The Bakers later gave three more gifts totaling nearly $1 million. Their generosity has been seen as the kiss that awakened some laggards to the garden's beauty.
The Bakers chose it for their gifts because of a long friendship with Fred Heutte, who founded the garden with federal aid in 1938.
During brief ceremonies that will begin Sunday at 2 p.m., Sarah Lee Baker will be recognized. Her husband, who died in June, kept up with every phase in the growth of the garden the couple cherished.
Their gifts will fund a state-of-the-art greenhouse, a perennial garden honoring Mrs. Baker, and the renovation of an overlook named for Isaac Baker's father, offering views of the canal's banks of purple and blue hydrangeas.
Anne Ruffin, president of the Norfolk Botanical Garden Society, will open Sunday's brief session. Dr. Mason Andrews, representing the City Council, will accept the gift. Peter Frederick, the garden's executive director, will respond.
From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. there will be activities for children.
From 1 to 4 p.m., Robert Stiffler will autograph copies of his book on gardening in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Earlier, on Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon, Stiffler will sign books at a members-only gathering.
Anne Ruffin noted Thursday that Sunday's opening marks the first phase of an $18 million expansion. Roots of the revitalizing trace to 1989 when Garden Society members urged the city to upgrade the garden's staff and launch a building program.
A task force appointed by the City Council in 1991 advised that the council authorize the botanical society to govern the garden. On Jan. 1, 1993, the society took charge; the garden took off like a kudzu vine.
``Truly, the city has been supportive in believing the society can create a world-class garden,'' Ruffin said. ``The city of Norfolk owns the garden; we are the caretakers.''
The 155 acres with a canal winding ``under an umbrella of towering trees bordered by Lake Whitehurst is an enviable garden in its natural state, enhanced by human hands,'' she said.
The society nurtures programs offering lectures, workshops, nature camps for children, research - a kind of museum of plants as much as the Chrysler Museum is a haven for the arts, she said. by CNB