Why Wing Haven matters.
Wing Haven is a historic garden and bird sanctuary where Myers Park's residential elegance meets Elizabeth Clarkson's pioneering wildlife conservation, the botanical scholarship of Elizabeth Lawrence and nearly a century of Southern horticultural achievement.
Set along Ridgewood Avenue near Selwyn Avenue and a short distance from Queens University of Charlotte, the gardens occupy a quiet residential enclave distinguished by mature hardwoods, landscaped properties and early twentieth-century homes. The original Clarkson property surrounds a two-story Colonial Revival residence, with brick walls and winding paths enclosing a remarkably intricate landscape. Formal garden rooms give way to shaded woodland passages, ornamental pools and intimate courtyards where flowering shrubs and climbing plants soften the surrounding masonry. Birdbaths, fountains and carefully positioned benches introduce places for observation, with seasonal flowers and dense vegetation creating changing patterns of color, texture and movement. The result is an intimate botanical sanctuary whose carefully composed landscapes preserve the character of a private Southern garden while supporting a remarkable concentration of urban wildlife.
What defines Wing Haven.
Wing Haven is best known for Elizabeth and Edwin Osborne Clarkson's transformation of an undeveloped Charlotte property into a nationally significant bird sanctuary, combining ornamental horticulture with an unusually early commitment to wildlife conservation. The couple met in Boston in 1924, when Edwin was working for Wellington Sears Company and Elizabeth Barnhill was studying piano at the New England Conservatory of Music. Edwin purchased their first Ridgewood Avenue lot in 1926, and the newlyweds settled into their Charlotte home the following year. Over the next decade, he assembled adjoining parcels that expanded their property to nearly three acres, giving Elizabeth the space to develop a garden organized around the needs of birds. Her interest in ornithology deepened during a prolonged recovery from undulant fever in 1930, when observing wildlife from the house became an important part of her daily life. In 1932, Cornell ornithologist Arthur Allen visited with his son to record birdsong, establishing an early connection between the private garden and scientific study. The Clarksons subsequently rescued four young bluebirds in 1936, including Tommy, who lived in their home for eight years and became a memorable part of the sanctuary's history. Elizabeth helped establish the Mecklenburg Audubon Society in 1940, extending her personal interest in birds into organized regional conservation. Her 1944 book, Birds of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, brought together years of observation and became an important reference for the area's resident and migratory species. Conservation advocacy acquired greater urgency in 1948 when she challenged Charlotte's use of DDT after observing its effects on birds, successfully securing a temporary halt to spraying. The city resumed the pesticide program in 1953 but agreed to exempt Ridgewood Avenue, preserving a measure of protection for the sanctuary nearly a decade before Rachel Carson published Silent Spring. Elizabeth's contributions to ornithology and horticulture eventually earned her an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Queens College in 1978. The Clarksons established the Wing Haven Foundation in 1970 and transferred their gardens to the organization in 1971, creating a permanent institutional structure for the landscape they had spent decades cultivating. Hurricane Hugo tested that commitment in 1989, destroying more than seventy-five trees and requiring extensive restoration of the sanctuary's mature canopy. The garden's continued preservation reflects the Clarksons' achievement in turning a private residential property into an enduring center for wildlife protection, environmental education and Southern garden history.
Elizabeth Lawrence's arrival on Ridgewood Avenue in 1948 introduced a complementary horticultural tradition that eventually became integral to Wing Haven's institutional character. Already an accomplished landscape architect and garden writer, Lawrence had become the first woman to graduate from North Carolina State College's landscape architecture program. Her new residence at 348 Ridgewood Avenue provided a compact setting for an ambitious experiment in growing plants under the climatic conditions of the Middle South. She began developing the garden in 1949, arranging beds, borders and narrow paths to accommodate an extensive collection of heirloom species and contemporary cultivars. The limited space encouraged close observation of individual plants, allowing Lawrence to study flowering periods, seasonal behavior and the relationships between neighboring specimens. Her investigations informed The Little Bulbs, published in 1957, and Gardens in Winter, published in 1961, two influential books that challenged conventional assumptions about the Southern gardening calendar. The same practical experimentation shaped more than seven hundred columns for The Charlotte Observer, bringing sophisticated horticultural knowledge into the daily lives of regional gardeners. Lawrence left Charlotte in 1984, and Mary Lindeman Wilson subsequently undertook a sustained restoration that preserved the garden's original layout and much of its historic plant material. The Wing Haven Foundation acquired the property in 2008, bringing the neighboring gardens of two influential Southern horticulturists under common stewardship. Their complementary interests subsequently informed the creation of the SEED Wildlife & Children's Garden, which opened in 2018 as an outdoor learning environment devoted to plants, wildlife and ecological relationships. The three properties now connect Clarkson's conservation work with Lawrence's experimental horticulture through gardens that retain their individual character. Wing Haven's broader significance rests on this convergence of two influential women whose practical investigations helped shape the understanding of birds, plants and environmental stewardship in the American South.
How Wing Haven fits.
Wing Haven works as the anchor for an outing connecting Myers Park's early residential development, Charlotte's philanthropic history and the public landscapes that established nature and recreation as important elements of the city's twentieth-century growth.
Begin at Duke Mansion, the Colonial Revival estate originally constructed in 1915 for utility executive Zebulon Vance Taylor. Industrialist James Buchanan Duke purchased the property in 1919 and commissioned architect C. C. Hook to substantially enlarge the residence, eventually creating a forty-five-room mansion surrounded by an extensive estate. Duke called the property Lynnwood, and the house became closely associated with the development of his electrical enterprises and philanthropic ambitions. The Duke Endowment, established in 1924, emerged during this period as one of the South's most consequential charitable institutions. The mansion now operates as a historic inn and event property, preserving a significant chapter in Charlotte's early corporate and residential history. Continue to Queens University of Charlotte, the institution founded in 1857 as the Charlotte Female Institute. The school evolved through several names, including Presbyterian Female College, before relocating to Myers Park in 1912 as the neighborhood developed into a prestigious residential district. Its historic campus introduced collegiate architecture and landscaped grounds into an area increasingly defined by planned streets and substantial private residences. The institution later expanded its academic programs and became coeducational, reflecting broader changes in American higher education. Its continued presence connects the neighborhood's early development with more than a century and a half of educational history. Conclude at Freedom Park, the ninety-eight-acre public landscape established after World War II through a fundraising campaign organized by the Mecklenburg County Lions Club. Dedicated to the region's military veterans, the park opened in 1948 and developed around a seven-acre lake, walking paths and recreational grounds. Its historical importance extends to May 18, 1954, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed thirty thousand people during a celebration of Armed Forces Day and the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. The park subsequently became home to Festival in the Park, an annual celebration of visual art, music and community gathering established in 1964. Its combination of landscaped open space, recreational facilities and cultural programming preserves an important part of Charlotte's postwar civic development. The progression moves from the private estate of a major Southern industrialist through the educational institution that accompanied Myers Park's growth and concludes in Charlotte's landmark postwar public park, tracing the neighborhood's relationship with philanthropy, education and landscape preservation.
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