Mike Hoke says “Shangri La is exactly like Lutcher Stark left it, even his houseboat is parked in the swamp where he left it.” He has good eyes, for over 30 years, that houseboat rotted and disappeared in the lake, never to be seen again, well, by most people that is. Maybe he can show you where the longhorns and goats are, but you might have to put on his glasses!
ORANGE -- BOTANICAL GARDENS
Secrets of Shangri La revealed
Long-shut botanical gardens to open in Orange
By Rose L. Thayer
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Sunday, March 09, 2008
ORANGE — Since the late 1950s, children living in this Texas town near the Louisiana
state line shared one common goal: to breach the 8-foot chain-link fence separating them
from a secret garden. Many people made claims that white squirrels and Texas Longhorns
roamed freely behind the fence. Some even talked about giant rats and mountain lions. Then
there were the brave few who described sneaking through the fence and barely making it out
alive.
Margaret Toal, a local writer and lifelong resident of Orange, told her daughter bedtime
stories about two little girls sneaking into the garden through a drainage ditch to discover a
magical world. "It was always like this secret garden. And it has that tall chain-link fence, so
when you're a kid, it makes you want to go there even more," says Toal.
H.J. Lutcher Stark, a wealthy citizen of Orange, created this garden in 1937. He named it
Shangri La after the magical land in a best-selling book of the 1930s, "Lost Horizons." In
the spring, while the azaleas were in bloom, he would allow the public to enter. He built a
fence across land and water that enclosed all 260 acres, and in 1958, without warning or
explanation, locked the gates forever. This week, all secrets will be revealed with the opening
of the Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center.
When Stark died in 1965, he left his estate, including Shangri La, to his third wife, Nelda,
and the Stark Foundation, which they had created just four years earlier. After Nelda's death
in 1999, she willed her remaining estate, valued at more than $200 million, to the foundation,
which began renovating the garden in 2002. After millions of dollars and unpredicted
setbacks, including a construction fire and two hurricanes, the gardens will fully reopen to
the public on Tuesday.
Visitors to the garden now will be able to enjoy a 45-minute walk through the nine gardens,
offering 300 different species of plants, sculptures and a history as captivating as the azalea
bushes surrounding a perfectly round lake. Cypress-filled swamps can be crossed on
boardwalks and a nature center building offers information about the ecology of Shangri
La.
"Mrs. Stark always planned to reopen it, but not in her lifetime," says Michael Hoke, the
executive director of Shangri La and a former environmental science teacher. "The last thing
she said to me was, 'Mr. Hoke, I like what you're doing, but it's not my thing. I don't like
spiders and snakes.' "
Before working for the Stark Foundation, Hoke ran the nature classroom on six acres
donated from Shangri La to the West Orange Cove school district.
Hoke says he entered Shangri La in 1996 to inspect Survivor, a 1,200-year-old-cypress tree.
He wanted a core sampling of the tree to determine its exact age, but Nelda Stark wouldn't
let him in alone. "She sent me in with two of her workers, and I had to stay in the pickup
truck and tell them what to do," Hoke recalls.
Lutcher Stark was notorious around Orange for keeping people out of Shangri La. But the
final closure of 1958 is as much a mystery as the contents of the garden. There are as many
stories as there are residents of Orange. The official explanation given by the Stark
Foundation is that an ice storm killed many of the azaleas in the garden.
Mary-Louis McKee, a close friend of Stark's, tells a similar story. "We got some bad
weather and a lot of the plants died and that really hurt him. He was also getting older,"
McKee says.
Toal questions this reason, wondering why none of the other azaleas in town died. Like
most, she believes the theory that Stark hated to see people littering in his garden. But
Stark's son, Homer, 85, who is estranged from the Stark Foundation and Shangri La,
remembers specifically the day his father closed the garden.
"He and I were standing out there talking and he said, 'I asked people not to pick the
flowers' and pointed over to kids tearing at the azaleas. So he said, 'I'm going to lock the
gates when these people leave' and he did," says Homer Stark. "That's the real story. People
were so discourteous."
Stark says his father would spend hours in Shangri La alone. "He liked to get away from
the hustle and bustle of the world. He would shut the gates and nobody would bother him.
That's what he wanted," Stark says.
He also revealed that his father did have longhorns and nutrias, which are large rodents.
Stark says his father even kept a goat there named Zetar that was known for charging at men
hired to tend the gardens.
Homer Stark quit going to Shangri La about a year ago because he feels that the new
Shangri La is not what his father would have wanted. "It kind of breaks my heart. Won't be
the Shangri La as I knew it or as Daddy knew it. If you want to open the gates, just open the
gates," Stark says, wishing the money his stepmother left to the foundation would have gone
to a college scholarship fund instead.
Hoke says 230 acres of Shangri La is exactly how Lutcher Stark left it. "You won't have to
walk far to see signs of Lutcher Stark," he says, adding his old houseboat is still parked in
the swamp area right where he left it.
Additions to Shangri La include new greenhouses, sculpture rooms, a cafe and a theater
showing a film about the gardens. Visitors, who can take a boat ride for an additional fee,
will be greeted with a welcome sign written by Hoke that relates to the main theme of
Lutcher Stark's inspiration, "Lost Horizons." It reads, "Be kind to your world."