By Dale Wayne Slusser – August 2026
“On his farm and nursery at Oteen is one of the largest collections of plants in the south….”.
-Asheville Citizen-Times, April 10, 1932
Chauncey D. Beadle was for sixty years a renowned horticulturalist associated with George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore Estate. Although his story and role in the development of the Biltmore Estate is well documented, little has been told about his personal farm and plant nursery which he owned and operated six miles east of Biltmore. Thousands of visitors to the modern-day Biltmore Estate have viewed and marveled at its many and varied forms of azaleas, especially in its marvelous “Azalea Garden” in the glen below the conservatory, not knowing their connection not only to Chauncey D. Beadle, but more importantly for our purposes, their connection to the “C. D. Beadle Nursery” at Oteen.
Chauncey Delos Beadle, a native-born Canadian, was born in 1866 in St. Catharines, Ontario to nurseryman Delos White Beadle and his wife Harriet Steele Beadle. Chauncey Delos Beadle was named for his grandfather, Chauncey Beadle, a New England physician who had moved to St. Catharines in the 1820s. Although he practiced as a physician, in the 1830s Dr. Chauncey Beadle became proprietor of the St. Catharines Nursery where by 1839 he was “cultivating not less than 250,000 fruit trees”.[i] Upon his death in 1863, Dr. Beadle’s son Delos White Beadle, then an educated and practicing lawyer, took over management of the St. Catharines Nursery. Three years later, Chauncey Delos Beadle was born into the Beadle family and its horticultural legacy.
George Washington Vanderbilt began construction of his vast Biltmore mansion in 1889. Over a six-year period, a community of craftsmen came together to create a grand estate, with the house and its remarkable gardens and grounds that surrounded it. To create his grand estate, besides hiring premier architect Richard Morris Hunt to design the house, Vanderbilt hired noted landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted to lay out Biltmore’s surrounding gardens and grounds. On the scale of grand English estates, Vanderbilt desired to have the house surrounded by formal and informal gardens, vegetable and dairy farms, deer parks, woodlands, and even forests! However, when Olmsted made his first visit to the site, he discovered that except for its grand views of the mountains, and its nearby old growth forests, the site was very disappointing. Olmsted would write that upon his first visit he was “greatly disappointed with its apparent barrenness and the miserable character of its woods”.[ii]
To transform Biltmore’s barren lands and miserable woods into a grand estate would require extensive quantities of trees and shrubs. Olmsted quickly realized such quantity of plant material could not be purchased from local or nearby nurseries, and that even if available, it would be cost prohibitive to purchase such copious quantities from commercial suppliers. Olmsted decided that the only solution was for Biltmore to have its own onsite nursery. As later elaborated by Olmsted, the purpose of the nursery was to supply trees and shrubs for planting for four targeted areas of landscaping on the estate: 1. To provide indigenous seedling trees for the development of Biltmore’s “systematically managed forest”.; 2. To provide trees and shrubs for planting along the extensive system of roads being developed on the estate.; 3. To provide “a plantation, three or four miles in length along the borders of a certain series of forest roads, which will contain a few specimens suitably classified and arranged for study.”- “The Arboretum”.; 4. To provide trees and shrubs “to gradually form in the glens of the estate passages of local scenery resembling those naturally occurring in many similar situation in the mountain regions of North Carolina.” –Specifically, these “constituent” plants were to be “lustrous smooth-leafed evergreens” such as Rhododendrons, Kalmias, Holly, and Lecuothoe.[iii]
The Biltmore Nursery was established in 1889 on the north side of the Swannanoa River, near the Gate Lodge entrance to Biltmore. James Gall, a landscape contractor who had previously been the foreman for the Central Park, NYC project with Olmsted, was hired by Olmsted to implement Olmsted’s plans for Biltmore. Gall was also put in charge of setting up and managing the Biltmore Nursery. But it was not long before Gall realized he could not manage the vast task of planting and implementing Olmsted’s landscape plans, as well as managing the nursery, so Gall asked Olmsted to hire a separate nursery manager. On March 25, 1890, Olmsted wrote to Gall informing him that he has found a qualified applicant for the job. Olmsted, without revealing his name, described the applicant as:
…A young man who seems to have peculiar qualifications for the position. He was five years with a Canadien nursery firm, then in the Arboretum at Guelph; then three years at Cornell University under Professors Prentice and Bailey, which ought to be a most valuable experience in connection with records; then one year with one of the largest nursery firms in the West, and two years with B. A. Elliott & Co. of Pittsburg one of the largest growers of hardy planta. He is now with John N. May the New Jersey rose grower.[iv]
C.D. Beadle, later in his life, recollected a different scenario of his hiring in 1890. Beadle’s recollection was that he had been sent temporarily by the Olmsted firm to sort out “an enormous shipment of plants and shrubbery from Europe to Biltmore consigned to the Biltmore Estate,”[v] and that after that he was to continue on to Chicago to complete a project he was engaged in for the upcoming World’s Fair. Perhaps that’s what he was told when he was hired, so that Olmsted wouldn’t have to commit to a full-time position before assessing Beadle’s capabilities? But whatever the story may be, that fact is that Beadle proved to be more than capable, and what he thought was to be a temporary job would turn into a 60-year career! According to Beadle’s recollection, he started work at Biltmore on April 1, 1890.[vi]
For its first five years, while Biltmore House was being constructed, the Biltmore Nursery’s sole purpose and output was to supply trees and shrubs for implementing Olmsted’s landscape plans for the Biltmore Estate. That was a monumental task. Already by 1891, just a year after Beadle’s hiring, the Biltmore Nursery reported that its stock of trees and shrubs had already grown to “100,000, and the total of seedlings and cuttings propagated on the grounds during the last year equaled about 500, 000”.[vii]
Another aspect of the Biltmore Nursery was its Herbarium. An herbarium is a collection of preserved (dried) plant specimens and their associated data systematically arranged into an archival collection. Its purpose is to preserve and catalog essential details such as the collection date, geographical location, and habitat of its specimens for future scientific research purposes. The Biltmore Herbarium was housed in a wing of the Biltmore Nursery offices, which were next to the nursery’s greenhouses and propagating houses.
Beadle was first hired to assist in the management of the Biltmore Nursery and Herbarium which were then under the management of Biltmore’s landscape and forest manager, James Gall, Jr. But in 1894, the Biltmore Nursery and Herbarium were made into its separate department with Chauncey Beadle appointed as superintendent. Beadle became such a valued and capable manager that in addition to managing the Nursery, when estate manager Charles McNamee left Biltmore in 1903, George and Edith Vanderbilt appointed Beadle as the new estate manager of Biltmore. In this position, Beadle often functioned as Vanderbilt’s proxy for the estate’s business and legal transactions.
In 1898, after the completion of most of the Estate landscaping, the Biltmore Nursery noticed that it still had an excess of available trees and shrubs. Always looking for ways to generate income for the estate, George Vanderbilt decided to turn the Biltmore Nursery into a commercial business. Its reputation, combined with referrals from Olmsted Associates, made the nursery an instant success. When giving instructions to printers J. H. McFarland Company of Harrisburg, PA to print copies of the Biltmore Nursery trade lists, Beadle ordered six thousand copies to be printed and mailed to “landscape architects, park superintendents, universities, and other nurseries for resale”.[viii]
For the ensuing decade and a half, while also still acting as the estate manager, Beadle continued to operate the Biltmore Nursery as a viable income producing business. However, having overspent on building and developing the Biltmore Estate, by the time of his sudden death in 1914, George Vanderbilt’s finances were running low. In fact, Vanderbilt died in Washington, DC where he had been trying to entice the U. S. Federal Government to purchase his vast forestry lands. Selling these lands would relieve Vanderbilt of the expense of maintaining these lands as well as producing some ready cash to boost his dwindling finances. Although, after her husband’s death, Edith Vanderbilt was successful in selling the lands (to become Pisgah National Forest), it was for a significantly lower price than she and George had hoped for. Thus, Edith was forced to take economy measures to keep Biltmore Estate from going under, and to pay its increasing tax burden. Edith Vanderbilt met with Beadle and other advisors to find ways to reduce the Estate’s operations and cut its workforce. The decision was made to curtail the Estate’s “horticultural and forests interests”[ix], which meant liquidating and ultimately closing the Biltmore Nursery.
The liquidation and closing of the Biltmore Nursery was at first, kept secret by Beadle and the Biltmore staff. In an April 16, 1915 letter to J. H. McFarland, informing McFarland that the Biltmore Nursery was being closed and hence they would no longer be publishing any new catalogs, Beadle urged McFarland to keep the closing a secret as: “We are not giving out information concerning the termination of our work as we still have in some lines large stocks to dispose of, and premature statement might result in our losing some opportunities of business by reason of the information that we had closed out.”8F8F9F[x] However, it appears that the word did prematurely leak out, creating rumors! The May 1915 issue of the American Nurseryman published the following notice:
In connections with plans by the Southern Railway company to extend its passenger and freight facilities at Biltmore, N. C. and acquire land of the Vanderbilt estate there, for it is stated that Mrs. George Vanderbilt is considering the sale of certain other holdings at Biltmore to local real estate interests. A rumor has been current that the nurseries at Biltmore, famous over the United States, have been sold to C. D. Beadle, superintendent of Biltmore estate. It is reported that Mr. Beadle would remove the nursery stock to land recently acquired by him eight miles up the Swannanoa river. When asked to confirm this rumor Mr. Beadle declined emphatically to do so.[xi]
No doubt the “rumor” was generated by the fact that indeed the month before, in April 1915, C. D. Beadle had finalized the purchase of a 67-acre tract of land (part of the old Burdie Gash farm) which was indeed “eight miles up the Swannanoa river”. This rumor persisted for at least a year, as in April of 1916, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported that: “For some time past it has been understood that the nurseries of Biltmore, which are famous over a wide extent of this country, have been sold to C. D. Beadle, superintendent of the Biltmore estate”.[xii] The article further reported as before that Beadle would move the nursery stock to his newly purchased farm, and also that Beadle denied to confirm the sale.
The Biltmore Nursery lands and buildings were destroyed in the flood of 1916.
Sadly, just a few months later, the final death blow came to the Biltmore Nursery in the form of the devastating July 1916 flood which destroyed 80-85% of the remaining nursery stock. Although there seems to be no record of the actual sale of the nursey stock to Beadle, a November 1916 letter from C. D. Beadle to Mr. Robert Lewis of the US Department of Agriculture Bureau of Plant Industry hints at the sale of the stock to Beadle. In the letter, Beadle confides to Lewis: “The Biltmore Nursery is almost wiped out of existence and were it not for the fact that I have on our farm an opportunity to grow a large number of plants and trees, I would have lost my hobby completely. I tell you a farm is a fine thing – especially to spend money on.”[xiii]
This closeup of a 1957 NCDOT aerial photo shows that a greenhouse or greenhouses (see star) were set up in the center of the property. A pyramidal-shape roofed building shows adjacent to the greenhouses, and no doubt was the nursery’s office. The east and west boundaries of the property are indicated by the arrows.
The farm that Beadle purchased was bordered on the north by the Black Mountain Highway (US-70), on the south by the Swannanoa River, and on the east by the F. M. Stevens property. A 1959 NC-DOT aerial photograph shows the layout and boundaries of the farm. True to Olmsted-style design, the 67-acre farm/nursery was laid out with winding paths separating various tree plantations and growing beds. A closeup of the photo shows that a greenhouse or greenhouses were set up in the center of the property. A pyramidal-shape roofed building is shown adjacent to the greenhouses, and no doubt was the nursery’s office. Beadle did not live onsite, maintaining his residence at “Eastcote” on the Biltmore Estate.
Asheville High School at Oak & College streets, c. 1920.
Despite maintaining his full-time position as Biltmore’s Estate Manager, C. D. Beadle, through his own nursery business, remained active as a sought-after nurseryman and landscape architect/designer. Just as he had done with the Biltmore Nursery, Beadle continued to offer landscape planning/design services to local businesses and clients. One of the first projects that Beadle took on in 1919 was the design for and supply of plantings for the newly built Asheville High School (later called David Millard School) on Oak Street.[xiv]
In 1920, Edith Vanderbilt and her advisors took two major initiatives in further efforts to reduce costs and tax burdens for the estate. The first initiative was to sell the entire Biltmore Village, which had been built outside of the gate, originally as an income-producing business providing leased housing to estate employees and guests. The second initiative was to sell about 1,500 acres of the Estate’s lands to be developed into a high-end residential park, to be called Biltmore Forest. The residential park was designed to attract wealthy clients to build luxury homes in Asheville. The land was sold to a private company called the “Biltmore Estate Company”, to do the developing. Although “Biltmore Estate” was in the company’s name, it was a private company with the following principal stockholders: T. W. Raoul, former President of the Albemarle Park company; Burnham S. Colburn, capitalist from Detroit and Asheville; William A. Knight, a capitalist of St. Augustine and Asheville; and Judge Junius G. Adams of Asheville.
A June 20, 1920 newspaper article reported that the company had hired C. D. Beadle as the “landscape engineer to be in charge of the work of laying out the grounds, drives, roads, and walks.”13F14F[xv] Beadle would also later be hired by many Biltmore Forest homeowners to design their individual home landscapes. One of the first residential commissions in Biltmore Forest that Beadle attained was for “New Gunston Hall”, a large house and grounds being built as a replica of Revolutionary-era Founding Father, George Mason’s house Gunston Hall. The house and landscaping were commissioned by Dr. William Beverley Mason, who was an otolaryngologist from Washington, D.C. and a great-great-grandson of George Mason. For the eight-acre site, which was akin to a small estate, Beadle designed several areas of landscaping. Beadle preserved the site’s existing topography and native trees, such as an aged white oak, while incorporating rows of hemlocks to frame a central great lawn and screen views from adjacent roads. This site was formally the home of Dr. J. F. E. Hardy, a local physician who was also a keen horticulturalist.[xvi] Beadle’s plant selections for New Gunston Hall, “focused on hardy evergreens, including rhododendrons along the entrance drive, winter honeysuckle for frontage borders, and boxwoods for foundation plantings, creating a structured yet naturalistic framework”.[xvii]
In 1921, Chauncey Beadle made a wise and fortuitous decision to hire a Black farmer from Rutherford County named Sylvester Owens, to be his chauffeur and gardener. Little did Beadle know that not only would Sylvester become a close friend and companion, but that Sylvester Owens would be the one to carry on Beadle’s legacy. In all the contemporary (1920s – 1940s) city directories and U. S. Censuses, Sylvester Owens’ occupation is only listed as “chauffeur”, with no mention of “gardener”. I believe that as the friendship grew between Beadle and Owens, with Beadle acting as both a father and mentor, Owens became a “gardener” by working with Beadle at his nursery farm at Azalea.
During the 1920s building boom, in addition to his Biltmore Forest development work (and his fulltime job as Superintendent of the Biltmore Estate), Chauncey Beadle took on numerous personal landscape design/construction projects such as: “Morningside Park”, a residential development on Brevard Road in West Asheville[xviii]; the new campus of the Mountain Orphanage (Black Mountain Children’s Home) built outside of Black Mountain in 1922[xix]; and in 1923, C. D. Beadle was given the commission to design the landscaping for the new Lake View Park, a luxury residential development in North Asheville[xx]. Although there are no remaining records from the C. D. Beadle Nursery to confirm it, I suspect that many if not most of the plants specified in these landscape plans were purchased through or directly from Beadle’s Nursery.
During the 1920s building boom, Beadle took on numerous residential landscaping commissions as well. In 1926, Beadle did the landscaping design for the Erle Stillwell residence in Hendersonville, NC. The house was designed by and built for local architect, Erle G. Stillwell. In 1927, Beadle collaborated again with Stillwell on a house that Stillwell designed for Mrs. F. W. Galbraith in Biltmore Forest. Beadle provided landscape design for the Galbraith house. Beadle’s work was publicized on both Stillwell houses in the January 1932 issue of the House & Garden magazine for both houses, and the accompanying photos show the landscaping surrounding the houses. Also, 1927, C. D. Beadle collaborated with renowned architect Harrie T. Lindeberg on the landscaping for a grand Biltmore Forest residence for the Robert Lee Ellis, then president of Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Asheville. Beadle provided a landscape design for the stately home with the formality of a Georgian home combined with the grandeur of an English Manor House.
Beadle was the landscape architect for these three residences: R. L. Ellis residence, Biltmore Forest, NC
Erle Stillwell residence, Hendersonville, NC.
F. W. Galbraith residence, Biltmore Forest, NC.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Chauncey Beadle was remarkably busy with work both in conjunction with his job as Superintendent of the Biltmore Estate as well as his personal business as a landscape designer and nurseryman. On March 15, 1930, John Cecil and his wife Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil opened the Biltmore House to visitors for the first time[xxi]. The Cecils had entrenched themselves in a small apartment on one side of the mansion, and had turned the remainder of the house into a museum/tourist attraction. As the Cecils were not always in residence, it was up to Superintendent Beadle to host the throng of new visitors. Although the Cecils formed the estate into the “Biltmore Company” in 1932, Beadle remained as Superintendent of the Biltmore Estate Landscape Department, and the Biltmore House and Gardens. In addition to his duties on the Estate, Beadle was also elected as secretary/treasurer of the Board of Directors of the new corporation.[xxii]
In 1930, C. D. Beadle provided “Shrubbery and flowers”[xxiii] to landscape the new Latta Nurses home built for Mission Hospital on Charlotte Street. The neo-classical brick building, was designed by local architect W. H. Lord. It was reported that Beadle’s landscaping added “much to the beauty of the building, giving it the appearance of a suburban home, rather than a structure in the middle of the city.”[xxiv]
A few of Beadle’s Depression-era landscaping projects were civic projects. In 1932, Beadle volunteered his services on the redevelopment of Pritchard Park in downtown Asheville. The park had been the site of the 1890s U.S. Post Office. By 1932, the post office had been demolished leaving a blank grass-covered triangular site. Beadle was not only in charge of the landscape design, but also of the actual planting and landscaping. Norway Spruce trees were planted on each point of the triangle, and two boxwood trees (donated by Dr. Herbert Miles) were also planted in the park, along with numerous shrubs and a hedge around the perimeter of the park.[xxv]
From 1931 to 1933, C. D. Beadle donated his services to design the city’s new Rhododendron Park in West Asheville. The new city park, built on the old “Roberts Park” was re-named Rhododendron Park as it was designed to showcase the region’s vast species of Rhododendron.[xxvi] Rhododendron Park was built on the site of the former “Strawberry Hill” estate, and “was a 100-acre natural space and botanical garden overlooking the French Broad River with views of downtown Asheville, Biltmore, and surrounding mountain ranges.” Beadle designed the roadways, walkways, and entrance gates, as well as the plan for the planting of 50,000 rhododendrons! Beadle also donated some of the shrubbery for the park,[xxvii] which no doubt came from his own nursery. In 1941, an educational “tree school” was dedicated to public use with a collection of more than 150 native trees.”[xxviii] The park “was dissected by the highway department and sold at auction in 1967 to become Aston Park Healthcare Center’s new location.”[xxix]
Entrance to Rhododendron Park in West Asheville, 1935
Funded by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, a Roosevelt sponsored Depression-relief program, in 1934 Asheville City Schools began a project to use wasted land behind the Asheville City High School on which to build a new athletic field. A large component of the project was a series of terraces surrounding the athletic field. The City hired landscape architect E. Burton Cooke to design the athletic field but then hired C. D. Beadle to design and supply the landscaping for the project.[xxx]
In 1931, Chaucey Beadle, then in his early 60s—the age when most men think about retiring—began a monumental project that would become his most enduring legacy. Upon the suggestion of William A. Knight, a retired nurseryman from St. Augustine, FL (and summer resident of Biltmore Forest), Beadle began “hunting”, collecting, cataloging, and propagating native Azaleas. Between 1931-1945, Beadle and his trusted chauffeur/gardener, Sylvester Owens, often accompanied by William Knight and Frank Crayton (a former Biltmore Nursery employee who opened his own nursery in Oakley after the closing of the Biltmore Nursery), would go on forays around the country looking for native species. This team, calling themselves “The Azalea Hunters”, would go on weekend trips (from Friday night to Sunday night) across the southeast, to collect native azalea samples. Eventually their trips would take them as far north as Maine, as far south as Florida, and even west to Illinois and Texas.[xxxi] Beadle would bring the collected Azalea plants back to his own nursery at Oteen, where he would grow and propagate them. He also “made copious notes and herbarium sheets on almost everything collected”.[xxxii]
Beadle’s chauffeur/gardener, Sylvester Owens was heavily involved in not only collecting the native azaleas, but he was also invested in growing and maintaining the collected samples. Owens’ widow, Franklyn Owens, later attested to her husband’s work:
Sylvester Owens in the Biltmore Azalea Garden in 1950.
“Syl would recall for me how Mr. Beadle would be sitting in the car, and he (Sylvester) would be down getting the azaleas, and he’d be gone so long that Mr. Beadle would call down and say, ‘Syl that’s enough!’ They’d come back with that car full of different species they’d collected.”[xxxiii]
“It was a love affair.” … “If Syl thought there would be a freeze, he and Mr. Beadle would get up in the middle of the night, and burn those pots you know, to keep the plants warm. He was crazy for those azaleas, and Mr. Beadle loved them even more.”
Carl & Drama Wolfe managed the C. D. Beadle Nursery at Oteen.
In addition to using his nursery as his “hobby”, and to collect and grow his “hunted” azaleas, in the early 1930’s, Beadle hired Carl F. Wolfe to manage and operate the “C. D. Beadle Nursery” as a retail business. Wolfe’s wife, Drama Justice Wolfe and later his son, Robert Lee Wolfe also assisted in the management of the Beadle Nursey.[xxxiv] During the 1930’s the Beadle Nursery also hosted group tours for the Carolina Mountain Club[xxxv] and the local chapter of the National Plant, Flower, & Fruit Guild.[xxxvi]
Bement House at Asheville School, c. 1939.
Around 1933, Chauncey Beadle began a large-scale landscape design for the private Asheville School in West Asheville. At the time, two of his stepsons were students at the school. In appreciation of the quality education that his stepsons were receiving, Beadle “offered his landscaping design and plant materials to the school free of charge. His design included enlarging and relocating the school entrance and landscaping for the Bement House and the Music House. Much of this design, except for the evergreen trees lining the entrance road into the campus, has been lost to damage or weather over the years.”[xxxvii]
C. D. Beadle designed the landscaping for the Biltmore Dairies facility in Charlotte, NC., 1935.
Not surprisingly, some of Beadle’s nursery projects were a result of Beadle’s connections with the Biltmore Company. In 1935, Biltmore Dairies, a department of the Biltmore Company, decided to expand their distribution into the Charlotte, NC area. The company hired local architect Anthony Lord to collaborate with Charlotte associate architect Lucien Dale to design the $25,000 facility for Biltmore Dairies (on Westmoreland Street). The new plant included a pasteurizer, display room, storage space, and a 22-car garage.[xxxviii] But more important to our story was the report that: “The Landscaping and planting of the property will be handled by C. D. Beadle, Oteen nursery operator.”[xxxix] This is one of the very few instances where a C. D. Beadle landscaping project was referenced to his own nursery, rather than to his association with the Biltmore Estate!
Julian A. Woodcock residence.
In 1936, Beadle was commissioned to provide landscape design services to Julian A. Woodcock, on the latter’s new house being built in Biltmore Forest, at the corner of Southwood and Vanderbilt roads. The 12-room “Italian farmhouse” was designed by architect Henry I. Gaines, with Beadle directing the landscaping.[xl] The house was highlighted in the 1939 issue of Carolina Architecture and Allied Arts.[xli]
In 1940, Chauncey Beadle decided to donate his azalea collection, which he and his fellow “Azalea Hunters” had collected, along with numerous other varieties which had been sent to him over the years. “Four seven years Mr. Beadle has been collecting azalea plants and propagating them at his own greenhouse at Oteen”, reported J. B. Hicklin in the May 1940 issue of State (forerunner of Our State) magazine, “He now has 100,000 small plants collected from many states and countries—some of them unknown to botanical science.”[xlii] Biltmore Estate decided to accept the donation in a joint ceremony held on April 1, 1940. The ceremony was not only a celebration of Beadle’s magnificent donation but was also a celebration of his 50 years as an “employee” of the Biltmore Estate. The ceremony included the unveiling of an official monument dedicating the new Azalea Gardens, which Beadle had already begun planting in the Glen below the Biltmore Conservatories. The Glens had been designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, but with his passing, its full planting was never realized. It would take a few years after the 1940 ceremony before all the Beadle-collected azaleas were transferred from Beadle’s nursery to the Estate.
Edith Vanderbilt Gerry and Chauncey Beadle at the Biltmore Azalea Garden dedication in 1940.
Sadly, in 1941, just a year after Beadle’s honoring ceremony, his second wife, Annie Louise Padgett Rudolph Beadle suddenly passed away after a brief 10-day illness.[xliii] Mrs. Beadle was survived by her three sons from a previous marriage: Latimer Rudolph (age 22), and J. Padgett Rudolph (age 21), and Shipley Rudolph (age 18). All three stepsons were still living at home when their mother passed. Shipley had just graduated from Asheville School. Latimer, who had filled out his Draft card in 1940, was attending the
Dedication of the Charles W. Johnston Gymnasium -Davidson College, 1949.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Padgett was attending Davidson College. However, all three were soon drafted to serve in World War II: Latimer in 1941, Padgett in 1942, and Shipley in 1944. Sadly, Shipley, who had been promoted to the fighter Squadron of the Army Air Force, was killed in “air action in the Pacific” in 1945, just a year after his enlistment. [xliv]
In 1949, C. D. Beadle, in “gratitude to Davidson’s contribution to the education of his son Pat Rudolph, Class of 1942”, donated plants to Davidson College to landscape their new Gymnasium.[xlv] The plants came from the C. D. Beadle Nursery as it was reported that Beadle allowed “Mr. Gillette, landscape architect at Davidson and Mr. Hobart, superintendent of grounds and buildings, to go freely into his own large nursery and select a considerable number of specimen plants…”.[xlvi]
Chauncey Delos Beadle in his greenhouse at the C. D. Beadle Nursery at Oteen-1940.
Chauncey Delos Beadle died on July 4, 1950 at the age of 83. A few days after his death, Junius Adams, then Superintendent of the Biltmore Estate, hired Sylvester Owens to takeover Beadle’s care of the estate’s Azalea Garden.[xlvii] Upon his hiring, Owens told the reporters: “Like Mr. Beadle- I love the plants-all of them- and I can picture the whole valley in bloom when the work is completed. Mr. Beadle was the finest, kindest man I ever knew. I was surprised and happy to be the one to carry on”.[xlviii] And “carry on” he did- Sylvester Owens tended and extended the Azalea Gardens until his retirement in 1964. During his tenure, he and his work at Biltmore were often noted in numerous newspapers and periodicals. An especially fine example was the three-page spread featured in the November 1960 issue of Ebony magazine. The article featured several photos of Owens tending his azaleas. In the article, Owens claimed that all the education he received was “at the foot of Mr. Beadle”. Owens said that the education he received from Beadle was not only “knowledge in growing plants but also instructions in reading, writing and spelling”.[xlix]
Upon his death, Beadle left his estate, including the “C. D. Beadle Nursery” at Oteen (Azalea) to his two surviving stepsons, Latimer and Padgett Rudolph. Although both men inherited it, Padgett Rudolph soon thereafter moved to Atlanta and seemed to take no interest in its operation. However, Latimer Rudolph stayed in Asheville and took over the management of the C. D. Beadle Nursery. Interestingly, although Latimer Rudolph was the owner (with his brother) of the nursery, he is listed in the 1951 Asheville City Directory as “hlpr Beadle Nursery”, indicating he was just a “helper”, probably to manager C. L. Wolfe? By 1954 he was listed as “wity Beadle Nursery”? The “wity” does not show in the directory’s list of abbreviations, and I’ve not a clue what it means! In 1953, the brothers Rudolph had the property platted, no doubt in anticipation of selling it.41F[l] Then in June of 1956 the Rudolph brothers sold the property to attorney Anthony Redmond.[li]
It is unclear for what purpose Redmond purchased the property, and whether he kept the Nursery in operation. We know from the previously mentioned 1957 aerial photo, that the nursery was still intact at least up to 1957. However, the death knell for the C. D. Beadle Nursery came in December of 1959 when Redmond sold the property to Pilot Construction.[lii] Pilot Construction Company, a subsidiary of Kavanagh-Smith of Greensboro, NC, had purchased the property to be part of a development in which they planned to build 200 brick homes.[liii] Construction of the new subdivision, named Parkway Forest, began early in 1960. At that time, the entire nursery and its plantings were bulldozed and the land scraped clean and leveled! Gone from sight, and soon from memory, was the “C. D. Beadle Nursery at Oteen”!
Photo & Image Credits:
Chauncey Beadle at Biltmore– Image BHA4-09038 -Biltmore Estate Archives, Asheville, NC.
Biltmore Nursery– “Biltmore Nursery”, Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, J. Horace McFarland Co. Collection.
Sample Herbarium Sheet-Cistus ladanifer L.– from Plants in cultivation at Biltmore, North Carolina, June 28, 1897—Biltmore Herbarium. –now at The National Museum of Natural History, Washington. DC.
Cover Biltmore Nursery 1908 – Cover of the Biltmore Nursery Catalog, Biltmore, N.C catalog, by Biltmore Nursery (Biltmore, N.C.), 1908; Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection. https://archive.org/details/CAT31289102/page/n1/mode/2up
Biltmore Nursery Under Water, 1916 Flood– Image BHA4-04860 – Biltmore Estate Archives, Asheville, NC.
Closeup of 1957 Aerial Photo– #m0623_2103, NCDOT Historical Aerial Imagery, North Carolina Department of Transportation.
Asheville High School, corner of Oak and College Streets– Image #A714-8M -Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Library, Asheville, NC.
Biltmore Forest Advertisement– The Asheville Times, July 14, 1921, p. 10.
Residence of William B. Mason– Illustration by Richards G. Deacon of: Residence of Dr. William B. Mason – The Story of Biltmore Forest, D. Hiden Ramsey, Privatedly printed [for The Biltmore Estate Company], 1925.
Lake View Park Advertisement– Asheville Citizen-Times, May 30, 1924, p. 13
Morningside Park Advertisement– The Asheville Times, July 19, 1925, p. 28.
Erle Stillwell Residence– Erle Stillwell House, Hendersonville, NC -–– House & Garden, Volume 61 -January 1932 (Los Angeles, Calif. : Conde Nast Publications, 1932), p. 64.
W. Galbraith Residence– FW Galbraith First House BF 1927– Erle Stillwell – House & Garden, Volume 61 -January 1932 (Los Angeles, Calif. : Conde Nast Publications, 1932), p. 60. 26 EASTWOOD RD
L. Ellis Residence– Rendering by H. Ross Wiggs, of H. T. Lindeberg, Architects- Pencil Points 1937-06: Vol 18 Issue 6, p. 348.
Latta Nurses Home– E. D. Latta Nurses’ Home, Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina Postcard Collection (P052), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Pritchard Park Newspaper Photo– “New City Park Made Fairyland By Snow”, Asheville Citizen-Times, December 18, 1932, p. 24.
Entrance to Rhododendron Park– Rhododendron Gardens Park, Asheville, NC -Photo by: Emergency Relief in North Carolina. A Record of the Development and the Activities of the North Carolina Emergency Relief Administration, 1932-1935. North Carolina Emergency Relief Commission-Mrs. Thomas O’Berry (pg. 89)- docsouth.unc.edu/nc/emergencyrelief/emergencyrelief.html
Carl & Drama Wolfe– “C. L. Wolfe Celebrate 60th Anniversary Today”, Asheville Times, May 30, 1967, p. 13.
Bement House, Asheville School– HOWARD BEMENT HOUSE, Asheville School, Carolina Architecture and Allied Arts, 1939 Edition. (Miami, FL: Carolina Architecture and Allied Arts, 1939) p. 12.
Biltmore Dairies, Charlotte, NC– Image BHA4-07079 -Biltmore Estate Archives, Asheville, NC.
Julian A. Woodcock Residence– “Residence of Mr. & Mrs. Julian A. Woodcock, Biltmore Forest, North Carolina”, Carolina Architecture and Allied Arts, 1939 Edition. (Miami, FL: Carolina Architecture and Allied Arts, 1939) p. 11.
Edith Vanderbilt Gerry and Chauncy D. Beadle at Azalea Garden Monument– -Biltmore Estate Archives, Asheville, NC.
Johnston Gymnasium, Davidson College– Dedication of Johnston Gym in 1949. -Davidson College Archives, Davidson NC.
Chauncey Beadle in his Greenhouse at Oteen– “Beadle Marks Half Century With Estate”, Asheville Citizen-Times, March 31, 1940, p. 9.
Notes
[i] “Beadle, Delos White”, Dictionary of Canadian Biography / Dictionaire Biographique Du Canada: Volume XIII, 1901 – 1910. (United Kingdom: University of Toronto Press,1966) p. 46.
[ii] The Biltmore Nursery: A Botanical Legacy, by Bill Alexander (Charleston, SC: Natural History Press, 2007), p. 16.
[iii] “Letter: To the Editor of the Asheville Lyceum from Frederick Law Olmsted, December, 1891.”, from The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Volume IX: The Last Great Projects 1890-1895. David Schyler and Gregory Kaliss, Editors. (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2017), pp. 447-449.
[iv] The Biltmore Nursery: A Botanical Legacy, p. 67-68.
[v] “C. D. Beadle Will Be Honored For 50-Year Record With Estate”, Asheville Times, March 28, 1940, p. 1.
[vi] United States of American, Petition For Citizenship, No. 307, dated August 17, 1927. -Asheville District Court, Petitions For Naturalization November 1929-May 1942. -ancestry.com
[vii] The Biltmore Nursery: A Botanical Legacy, p. 69.
[viii] Ibid, p. 72.
[ix] Ibid, p. 74.
[x] “Letter -19 Apr 1915: Chauncey Beadle to J. Horace McFarland Company”.- Nursery Department Outgoing Correspondence Volume 50, p. 832., -Biltmore Estate Archive, Asheville, NC.
[xi] American Nurseryman, May 1915. American Fruits Publishing Company., p.128.
[xii] Asheville Citizen-Times, April 1, 1916, p. 10.
[xiii] Letter-24 Nov 1916: CB to Mr. Robert L. Lewis, Washington DC. – Nursery Department Outgoing Correspondence Volume 50, p. 832., -Biltmore Estate Archive, Asheville, NC.
[xiv] “Beadle To Beautify High School Grounds”, Asheville Citizen-Times, August 31, 1919, p. 2.
[xv] “COMPANY BUY 1,500 ACRES BILTMORE ESTATE, FOR BIG HOTEL, GOLF COURSES, CLUB”, Asheville Citizen-Times, June 20, 1920, p. 1.
[xvi] Charlotte Medical Journal. Volume XXVIII, May 1906, (Charlotte, NC: Blakey Printing House, 1906), p. 280.
[xvii] “Chauncey Beadle”, https://grokipedia.com/page/chauncey_beadle
[xviii] The Asheville Times, July 19, 1925, p. 28.
[xix] “MOUNTAIN ORPHANAGE NEAR ASHEVILLE TO COST $52,000”, Asheville Citizen-Times, August 16, 1922, p. 5.
[xx] “BEAVERDAM REALTY DEVELOPMENT WILL COST $2,000,000”, Asheville Times, May 6, 1923, p. 17.
[xxi] “To Open Vanderbilt Mansion To Public On March 15”, Winston-Salem Journal, Winston-Salem, NC, March 2, 1930, p. 18.
[xxii] “CECIL PROPERTY PUT IN COMPANY”, Asheville Citizen-Times, April 5, 1932, p. 1.
[xxiii] “Latta Nurses Home”, Asheville Times, July 23, 1930, p. 6.
[xxiv] Ibid.
[xxv] Pritchard Park Beautification Going Forward”, Asheville Times, December 5, 1932, p. 12.
[xxvi] “CITY PARK WILL BE BEAUTIFIED”, Asheville Citizen-Times, November 13, 1932, p. 23.
[xxvii] Asheville Citizen-Times, October 15, 1933, p. 19.
[xxviii] “Park Views: West Asheville Park”, Posted on June 5, 2024 by Christo Bubenik, – https://www.ashevillenc.gov/news/park-views-west-asheville-park/
[xxix] Ibid.
[xxx] “Athletic Field For Senior High School To Be Constructed”, The Asheville Times, November 13, 1934, p. 1 and p. 14.
[xxxi] “The Gardens At Biltmore: A Tribute to Chauncey Delos Beadle”, by Dr, Fred J. Nisbet. The Cornell Plantations, Volume XVIII, No. 2, Summer 1962., p. 26-27.
[xxxii] Ibid., p. 27
[xxxiii] “Azaleas Are Living Legacy”, Statesville Record and Landmark, Statesville, NC, April 13, 1997, p. 40.
[xxxiv] “Evelyn Lucille Sharp Weds Robert Lee Wolfe”, Asheville Citizen-Times, October 13, 1938, p. 7.
[xxxv] Asheville Times, March 21, 1932, p. 12.
[xxxvi] Asheville Citizen-Times, March 29, 1932, p. 6.
[xxxvii] National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Asheville School, Section 7, Page 3, -Prepared by Sybil Argintar Bowers, February 1, 1996. National Park Service.
[xxxviii] “Biltmore Dairies- BUY LAND FOR BIG PROJECT”, The Charlotte News, Charlotte, NC, p. 1.
[xxxix] Ibid.
[xl] “MORE THAN 15 NEW HOUSES UNDER CONSTRCUTION”, Asheville Citizen-Times, May 8, 1936, p. 17.
[xli] “Residence of Mr. & Mrs. Julian A. Woodcock, Biltmore Forst, North Carolina”, Carolina Architecture and Allied Arts, 1939 Edition. (Miami, FL: Carolina Architecture and Allied Arts, 1939) p. 11.
[xlii] State: Weekly survey of North Carolina, Vol. 7, no. 52, May 25, 1940, Raleigh, N.C., p. 22
[xliii] “Funeral For Mrs. Beadle Set For Tuesday”, Asheville Times, June 2, 1941, p. 1.
[xliv] “Death of Lt. Rudolph In Pacific Air Crash Brings War Toll To 20”, Asheville Times, January 24, 1945, p. 1.
[xlv] “President Davidson Reports to Trustees”, The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, May 28, 1949, p. 12.
[xlvi] Ibid.
[xlvii] “Negro Appointed To Make Biltmore Estate Capitol Of World”, The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, July 30, 1950, p. 9.
[xlviii] Ibid.
[xlix] “Azalea King: Negro Landscape Expert Runs Largest Azalea Garden in the U. S. on Fabulous Biltmore Estate”, Ebony, Volume 6 No. 1, November 1960, p. 106.
[l] 10/06/1953 James Paget Rudolph & Henry Latimer Rudolph -PLAT NEAR OTEEN HOSPITAL, Db. 26/85. -Buncombe County Register of Deeds.
[li] 06/06/1956 (rec’d 06/12/1956) James Paget Rudolph & Henry Latimer Rudolph to Anthony Redmond – SWANNANOA TWP Db. 773 / 564. –Buncombe County Register of Deeds.
[lii] 12/21/1959 (rec’d-12/24/1959) Anthony Redmond to Pilot Construction -SWANNANOA TWP NEAR OTEEN, Db. 823 / 441. -Buncombe County Register of Deeds.
[liii] 200-House Subdivision Planned On Tract Opposite Oteen Hospital”, Asheville Citizen-Times, December 25, 1959, p. 25.
