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Scott Sunken Garden

Scott Sunken Garden
Type Historical Landmark
Location Lansing, Michigan
Coordinates 42°43′31″N 84°33′12″W / 42.7251498°N 84.5532807°W / 42.7251498; -84.5532807Coordinates: 42°43′31″N 84°33′12″W / 42.7251498°N 84.5532807°W / 42.7251498; -84.5532807
Area REO Town
Built 1930
Restored May 1985
Restored by Greater Lansing Garden Club
Governing body City of Lansing
Owner City of Lansing
Official name: Scott Sunken Garden
Designated

2016

MSHDA Qualified for National Register of Historic Places
Official name: Scott Park
Designated

1977

City Park
Official name: Scott Residence
Designated

1930

landscaped garden
Official name: Cahill Residence
Designated pre 1923

2016

1977

1930

Scott Sunken Garden is an historical landmark in Lansing, Michigan, United States of America.

The outer foundation walls are 51 feet by 79 feet and the center is a 28 feet by 45 feet lawn. There are shorter limestone walls lining the court with raised flower beds. The west side and east sides have limestone steps leading to a small water pond below the grotto center piece. This foundation of Justice Edward Cahill's home was redesigned after 1930 by a new American immigrant, Nick Kriek. The gardening includes bulbs, annuals, perennials and a list of species introduced to the area by Kriek himself. The garden has been maintained by the Greater Lansing Garden Club for 3 decades; they restored it after a few decades of neglect by the city.

The Scott Sunken Garden landmark has a list of historically significant ties including 1930's "Golden Age of American Landscaping", Immigration, Civil Rights, and Lansing's Beautification.

National Register Coordinator for the State of Michigan state that the Scott Sunken Garden Is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.... The garden appears to meet national register criteria B and C...."

"Even though the Scott House itself – the house that stood just west of the garden near the Jenison House/Scott Center – that formed the central feature of the property no longer exists, the garden stands out as a fine example of formal landscape garden design from the early twentieth century (various dates of construction from the mid-1920s to 1934-35 have been reported). As far as I’ve been able to determine from all the recent discussions, the garden is unique in Lansing as a formal garden that, designed for an urban residential setting, dates from the early twentieth century period when landscaped gardens and estates associated with them reached a height of design perfection, during what has been called the “Golden Age of American Landscape Design.” The Scott Sunken Garden, in my mind, possesses additional significance as a prime achievement of a local Lansing artisan, Nick or Nicolaas Isaac Willem Kriek. Kriek (1895–1978) was born in the Netherlands and, settling in Lansing in the early 1920s, founded the Cottage Gardens nursery in 1923. Bill Hicks, Mr. Kriek’s grandson and today part of the still operating family-owned business, states that Nick Kriek built the Sunken Garden for Scott, from whom he had purchased the property on which the Cottage Gardens nursery was established in 1923. It seems logical to think that Kriek had a major hand in designing the garden to meet the Scotts’ wishes and requirements. The garden also possesses importance for its direct association with an important Lansing citizen, Richard H. Scott, who owned the property and had the garden created. Marilyn Lee’s 2010 history of the garden states that Scott came to Lansing in 1898 to work for auto pioneer R. E. Olds and helped organize Olds’ Reo Motor Car Company and served as president of the company after Olds retired in 1923." This Scott Sunken Garden foundation is presumed to be the remains of Justice Edward Cahill's Lansing home. He moved to Lansing after serving in the Civil War and went to war serving beside African American soldiers in Michigan's 102nd USCI on a campaign through southern states. Justice Edward Cahill served in the Michigan Supreme Court in 1890. Justice Cahill also concurred upholding Racial equality in USA's landmark Civil Right's "William W. Ferguson vs. Edward G. Gies" case


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