Bellingrath Gardens

The Bellingrath Gardens and Mansion is located just south of Mobile in a little town called Theodore, Alabama. The story of how Bellingrath Gardens came to be is a sweet little love story that warmed my heart.  In 1903, Walter Bellingrath and his brother heard about an opportunity to purchase a Coca-Cola franchise. They jumped on the opportunity, purchased the franchise and headed down South. Walter then met a beautiful young local gal named Bessie and of course they fell in love. In 1906, Walter and Bessie were married, purchased this little (65 acres) piece of water front land to begin their life. Walter liked to fish a lot and Bessie decided that if she was going to be hanging out near the water all the time, she needed flowers and a mansion (what girl doesn’t!?).  This was during the great depression but luckily for the Bellingrath’s, they weren’t really affected by the depression so they were still able to live a life of luxury.  Bessie would often go downtown and run into families on the street selling everything they owned. Bessie would stop to buy their furniture, tell them she would return later to pick it up and never did. I thought that little story was very sweet.

Jessica and I had such a great time wandering through the gardens daydreaming what it was like to live there and how much work it must be to maintain the land. We got pretty lucky and it had been raining that day so we pretty much had the Gardens all to ourselves as well as cooler weather (we were still sweating like pigs).  We both agree that we wish we could go back for each season, especially Christmas but that most likely won’t be happening for either of us. After the Gardens, we went to Mobile, AL and wandered downtown. Mobile is super charming with all of the unique old southern houses. They were so dreamy and made me want to buy a house in Mobile 🙂

Brady got me a new camera lens for my birthday so I had a good time pretending to be a photographer and learning how my new lens works. I quickly learned that this new lens is awesome for close-ups but you have to be so FAR away from everything in order to get everything into the frame.

Thanks for reading. Hope you have a happy Monday!