CHARLESTON — After years of painstaking restorations inside a historic home on Church Street, Ruth Ann McSpadden is now turning her attention to the real reason she fell in love with the property: the garden.
Ruth Ann McSpadden shows the original sketches by renowned landscape architect Loutrel Briggs for the garden behind her Church Street home on April 9, 2026 in Charleston. Ali Rockett/Staff
Ali Rockett/Staff
The 30-by-100-foot backyard is said to be the most visited private garden in the Holy City. In 1942, Emily Whaley commissioned the design from renowned landscape architect Loutrel Briggs. Those original plans, along with Mrs. Whaley’s memoir, are guiding the McSpaddens’ renovation.
“I am hoping that the garden restoration, when it is finally finished, will be a fitting tribute to both Mrs. Whaley and Mr. Briggs,” McSpadden told The Post and Courier.
McSpadden acknowledged the garden is in rough shape today. Backhoes are digging new trenches for an irrigation system that will feed into its reflecting pool at its center. Construction crews already added pierced brick fences and potting sheds.
These modern touches harken back to Briggs’ original vision, while ensuring the garden will remain for “another 200 years,” like the white clapboard home that was built before the Revolutionary War.
“Our attitude is you only have one chance of doing it right, and you really want to get every component 100 percent accurate,” McSpadden said, calling herself and her husband the latest in a long line of “stewards” of the property.
Ruth Ann McSpadden shows off plans for the garden behind her Church Street home. McSpadden and her husband bought the historic home in 2023, and after years restoring it, she’s now renovating the garden, made famous by former owner Mrs. Whaley, based on renowned landscape architect Loutrel Briggs’s original plans. Ali Rockett/Staff.
Ali Rockett/Staff
They bought the property in 2023 for $3.35 million from Marty Whaley Adams Cornwell, Emily Whaley’s youngest daughter. For more than two decades, Cornwell tended to her mother’s garden and opened it to visitors — an obligation that need not extend to McSpadden, Cornwell previously told The Post and Courier.
McSpadden said she plans to open the garden for tours through Historic Charleston, the Preservation Society and the Garden Club once renovations are complete by — she hopes — this fall. But her insurer has forbidden it from being widely accessible, she said.
Mrs. Whaley’s garden. Marty Whaley Adams Cornwell/Provided
Shelves in an addition she had built overlooking the miniature Eden are filled with books about Briggs and the garden. Mrs. Whaley’s Garden, as it’s now known, is rumored to be one of Briggs’ favorite, according to the book “Mrs. Whaley and her Charleston Garden” written in conversation with William Baldwin.
In doing all the research, McSpadden said she found that the combination of Briggs’ hardscape and Whaley’s imagination and love of color is what made the garden truly special.
“It’s so well photographed,” she said. “It’s pretty easy to recreate.”
Anna-Catherine Alexander, director of advocacy initiatives at the Preservation Society of Charleston, said the plans were reviewed when they went through several city approvals before work could begin, and they showed no changes.
The McSpaddens moved into the home last month and already love it, but “the icing on the cake” comes when the gardener can get her hands in the dirt.
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