Mary Palmer Dargan, ASLA and Hugh Dargan, ASLA are the principals of Dargan Landscape Architects. The following surveys their long-standing involvement in historic preservation, restoration projects and historic garden re-creations.
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Consultation for Historic Properties
Over the past twenty-five years Dargan Landscape Architects has completed landscape preservation and historic garden projects for over 100 sites of cultural importance in the United States and in England. The preservation and interpretation of historic landscapes is a long-standing commitment.
Hugh Dargan, ASLA is a founding board member of The Southern Garden History Society; Mary Palmer Dargan, ASLA holds a Master’s Degree in Landscape Architecture (LSU) with advanced study in garden history. She served on the National Advisory Committee of The Garden Conservancy and is author of The Early English Kitchen Garden: Medieval Period to 1800. Both currently serve as Vice-Chairs of the Historic Preservation Professional Interest Group of the American Society of Landscape Architects. They have gained national recognition for work on historic sites including awards in Historic Preservation Design from the American Society of Landscape Architects.
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55 South Battery, Charleston, South Carolina
Mary Palmer and Hugh Dargan received the ASLA National Award of Merit in Design for their recreation of a late 18th century garden at 55 South Battery in Charleston, South Carolina (1989). It marked the first time, in the United States, this prestigious award was given to a private residential garden.
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The Dargans’ initial excavations on the site identified fragments of brick-edged parterres from an earlier garden that once existed near the house, which was built in 1780. This discovery, along with extensive local research led to the creation of four oval beds surrounding a diamond-shaped central bed. Throughout the project, eighteenth-century construction techniques were used, as were native and exotic plant materials consistent with the period of the house.
Landscape Architecture magazine wrote, “This project exemplifies a complete transformation from a “non-environment’ to a late 18th century garden. It helped to revive lost and diminishing craftsmanship techniques in the fields of historic preservation, traditional building and plant materials selection for historic re-creation projects.”
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The Benjamin Phillips House, Charleston, South Carolina
The Dargans received a second ASLA National Award of Merit in Design for the re-creation of an early 19th c. garden for the Benjamin Phillips House in Charleston, South Carolina (1991). The original garden for the house, built in 1818, had long since vanished; the project started with a paved parking lot surrounded by chain-linked fencing.
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A detailed re-creation of what might have been there more than a century ago included the construction of brick walls of handmade, antiqued bricks; parterres containing historically appropriate plants and heirloom camellias; axially-designed, sand-shell paths; and twenty-foot trees.
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The Dargans located the most skilled craftsmen and closely supervised every stage of the project. (This degree of involvement is consistent with all of the design studio’s historic preservation and re-creation projects.) The garden received the following commendation from ASLA judges: “ …excellent in the cultural tradition of both city and region… It is confident, modest and well put-together. The garden is understated as only people working intuitively within a tradition can perform. It is superbly made.”
Services
Consultation and design services for historic properties include: historic research, archeological research, historical inventory, site analysis, phasing plans, comprehensive interpretive plans, creation of garden and/or site master plans and on-site implementation. When needed, additional expertise is called in from the fields of architectural preservation, architectural history, horticulture, museum studies, and on-site archaeology.
Public Education
Both Hugh and Mary Palmer Dargan lecture nationally on principles of historic landscape design. Frequently, lecture proceeds go directly into fundraising efforts for critical preservation projects. They consider public education in the field of historic preservation a professional and personal priority.
Archives
Dargan Landscape Architects is one of the first major landscape architectural firm in the United States to have given its documentation of projects involving historic properties to a non-profit institution. A series of biennial donations to the South Carolina Historical Society will number about 150 files when complete. ASLA’s newsletter, Historic Preservation, said of this project: “The collection contains working drawings, plats, photographs, magazine articles and in some cases a history of the site. This is a massive undertaking and the Dargans’ efforts to ensure future researchers will have access to these records are worthy of recognition.” Their Charleston Garden Archives are housed in the South Carolina Historical Society in downtown Charleston, SC.
Selections from the Portfolio
A partial list of properties for which Dargan Landscape Architects have consulted and/or completed master plans includes:
Seventeenth Century
Newark Park, c. 1550
Gloucestershire, England
British National Trust for Historic Places
(Master Plan, Interpretive and signage Study)Stanway, c. 1630
Gloucestershire, England
The Earl of Wemyss and March, and Lord Neidpath
(Research, Preliminary Canal Excavation, Tree Inventory and Interpretative Plan)Medway Plantation, c.1690
Mt. Holly, SC
(Period Kitchen Garden Design)Eighteenth Century
Col. Othniel Beale House, c. 1722
Charleston, SC
(Research, Inventory, Design)Historic Crowfield Garden, c. 1730
Goose Creek, SC
Westvaco Corporation
(Master Plan, Archaeological and Interpretive)Heyward Washington House, 1772
Charleston, SC
Charleston Museum; Garden Club of Charleston
(Inventory, Analysis and Maintenance Guide)58 South Battery, 1780
Charleston, SC
Recreation of an 18th c. garden for a private residence
(Research, Design and Implementation)
ASLA National Merit AwardNineteenth Century
Benjamin Phillips House, 1818
Charleston, SC
(Research, Design and Implementation)
ASLA National Merit AwardGovernor’s Mansion, 1831
Jackson, MS
Department of History and Archives
(Research, Master Plan, Presentation)Hampton Preston Garden, c. 1835
Columbia, SC,
Richland County Historical Association
(Research, Presentations, Design)Woodrow Wilson Childhood Home, 1853
Augusta, GA
Historic Augusta, Inc.
(Research, archaeology, Presentations, Design)Vanderbilt University Campus, c. 1876
Nashville, TN
Board of Trustees, Vanderbilt University
(MPD, while at Miller Whiry, Inc.
1981 Campus Beautification Study)Thistle Hill: A Cattle Baron’s Mansion, 1903
Fort Worth, TX
Texas Heritage Foundation
(Inventory, Master Plan, Interpretive Presentations)Twentieth Century
Brookgreen Gardens, 1932
Murrells Inlet, SC
Dogwood Garden Restoration
Entry Drive Enhancements
Ongoing consultation work in the gardens for more than a decade
