Preserving Savannah’s Crown Jewel

March 31, 2022

Trustee’s GC’s Legacy Project for Savannah’s Forsyth Park

Many years ago and true to the old saying “make no small plans”, the Trustees’ Garden Club set out to create a stewardship plan for Savannah’s crown jewel - Forsyth Park. It was to be a gift to the city to ensure the park’s integrity and preservation, its continuity of purpose and materials, and to give guidance and policy tools for decision making – while also allowing the park to evolve and meet the demands of modern life. As a Trustees’ Garden Club member and one of the project’s co-chairs put it back then “The beautiful park was being loved to death. It needed a master plan.”

The renowned landscape architectural firm Nelson Byrd Woltz was selected to help with this monumental task. Thomas Woltz is well known in GCA circles – being the award recipient of the GCA's Elvira Broome Doolan Medal at the 2018 Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Before any plans for the future could be considered however, studies had to be done to document every aspect of the existing park including tree surveys, lighting, drainage, and more. Trustees’ Garden Club members assisted with these efforts, even counting park benches and refuse containers, as well as surveying the community for their input. 

The process took over two years and involved many presentations to diverse constituencies as well as  spending a lot of Saturdays in the park taking basic surveys from regular park users and tourists. In the end, a well-conceived master plan was created.

The 300-page plan was unveiled this past November by Thomas Woltz and is currently being reviewed for approval by the city of Savannah. The plan carefully outlines maintenance and preservation goals, design guidelines for furnishings, fixtures and pavements, guidelines for future projects such as a new playground and restrooms, tree protection measures, and more. The two remaining elements of the stewardship plan are to establish a conservancy, which is in the process, and to nominate the entire park as a National Historic Landmark. There is a long-time, on-going rivalry between New York City's Central Park and Savannah's Forsyth Park on which park is older….it all depends on which documents one recognizes, but both parks are representative of the enlightened understanding in the mid-1800’s that human beings need the serenity and beauty of nature to survive and thrive. 

In 2016 and 2017, Forsyth Park incurred serious damage from hurricanes Matthew and Irma. The storms significantly impacted the park’s plantings and gardens. The GCA's Restoration Initiative grant awarded in 2020 to the Trustee’s Garden Club allowed the club to help restore lost trees and plantings.

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