When completed, York County will have its own Longwood Gardens
Lois Appell III was one of the speakers during the groundbreaking of a massive public garden at Millbourne estate to be completed in 2027.
Louis Appell Jr. never really showed much interest in gardening, his son, Louis Appell III, recalled.
The broadcast/radio/pottery magnate never really expressed much interest in digging in the dirt and planting flowers or tomatoes. But over the years, the family estate, called Milbourne off Powder Mill Road in York Township, evolved from a chaotic, overgrown hillside into a manicured, English-style garden with stone fences, a pond and lush gardens.
The senior Appell died in June 2016, and the family and its foundation, the Powder Mill Foundation, began working on plans to memorialize him and “speak to his legacy,” as Michael Hady, president and CEO of the foundation, put it at a groundbreaking ceremony. They came up with a plan, and on Wednesday, Sept. 24, they unveiled it – the estate would be transformed into a public garden, along the lines of Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square.
The groundbreaking – held under a white canopy to shelter the gathering from a steady drizzle – was the culmination of seven years of planning, Hady said. When finished, the public garden will cover the 50-acre estate.
The younger Appell told the gathering that when his parents bought the property in 1964, it was run down and “there was nothing here.” There was a house and a barn and overgrown fields, he said. He recalled that his mother wanted horses and he and his sisters were tasked with cleaning out the barn to house them. Now, he recalled, the previous owners kept cattle in the barn and when he opened the door, there was three feet of impacted cattle excrement, “like concrete,” on the floor. He and his siblings spent three or four days shoveling it and carrying it away, one wheelbarrow at a time.
“That was the last time I put a shovel in the earth here,” he said.
When his parents divorced in 1974, he said, the house was in limbo. First, he said, his mother wanted it, and then she didn’t. Then, his father wanted it, and then he didn’t. “That went on for some years,” Appell said.
In 1980, his father and his second wife, Jody, moved into the house. His father and his wife had the house fixed up, and that year it was a Designer Showcase House.
Over the following 35 years, he said, the house and the property evolved. New gardens were put in. Stone fences were erected.
The property reflected his father’s tastes, he said. His father had traveled often to England and was quite the Anglophile. He idolized Winston Churchill, he said.
The propery was transformed into an English estate, complete with a stone mansion and a matching carriage house. On the hill above the carriage house are stone ruins, designed by an architect to be reminiscent of the remnants of an English farmhouse.
The gardens kept expanding, he said. The grounds of the estate, once overgrown, were tamed into orderly British gardens.
After his father’s death – and his stepmother’s death in 2024 – plans for the public garden in a space tha Tim Tate, president of the Stewart & Tate construction firm, described as “a beautiful hidden gem in our community” moved forward.
When completed, Tate said, the garden will have a stone-glass-and-frame visitors center, an expansive rose garden, two stone tea houses connected by a trellis, a frog pond and a reconstructed gazebo. Construction is expected to be completed in 2027.
The garden is intended to honor the senior Appell’s legacy. “His life revolved around making things better for everyone,” his son told the gathering. “He always thought beyond himself.”
Appell recalled a quote – the origins attributed to the Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero – that “Blessed is he who plants a tree under whose shade he will never sit.”
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