Pulaski County Master Gardeners
The Little Rock Visitor Information Center at Curran Hall
The Marjem Ward Jackson Historic Gardens
Pulaski County Master Gardeners' Newest Project
Curran Hall
(Walters-Curran-Bell House)
Listed in the National Register of Historic Places
615 East Capitol Avenue, Little Rock, Arkansas
Col. Ebenezer Walters built the house now known as Curran Hall around 1842 as
a wedding gift for his bride, Mary Eliza Starbuck. In 1849, it was purchased by
James Moore Curran, a young lawyer, for his wife, Sophie Fulton, daughter of
William Savin Fulton, Arkansas' last territorial governor and first U.S.
senator.
Other owners included Jacob Frolich, secretary of the State of Arkansas from
1879 to 1885, who bought the house in the 1870s, and Mary Eliza Woodruff Bell,
daughter of the Arkansas Gazette's founder, William E. Woodruff. Bell bought the
home in 1884. It was later bequeathed to her granddaughter, Averell Reynolds
Tate, who lived in the house until the early 1990s. The City of Little Rock and
the Little Rock Advertising and Promotion Commission acquired the house in 1996,
saving it from demolition. and, with the Little Rock Visitor Information Center
Foundation leading the way, renovated it to serve as Little Rock's first
official visitor information center.
Six years later, after a $1.4 million renovation, the transformation is
complete. The city's visitor information center formally opened May 18, 2002.
Landscaping and Architecture of Curran Hall and the Marjem Ward Jackson
Historic Gardens
Construction and Ownership
Curran Hall was constructed in 1842 in the Greek Revival style, adapted to a
Southern frontier setting. Over the years, the house has seen changes,
noticeably to the front porch, and many additions and changes to the rear.
Originally comprising two full blocks, the urban farmstead was gradually reduced
in size to one lot. Both decorative and utilitarian plantings survived the
transitions.
After changing ownership eight times, the antebellum house was purchased in
1996 by the City of Little Rock and has been sensitively restored to be the
Visitor Information Center for Little Rock. It is now operated by the Little
Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau. Pulaski County Master Gardeners have helped
document historic plants and will help maintain several areas of the landscape.
Physical Structure
The symmetrical, one-story house has a central hall with two rooms opening
off either side. Walls are three bricks thick. The original front porch was
narrow, as it has been restored. The hip roof, covered with wood shakes,
included cypress box gutters. Four square columns supported an entablature with
bold dentil trim.
A detached two-story structure at the rear housed the dining
room, kitchen, and two upstairs bedrooms, with four separate cellars underneath.
A porch extended across the entire rear, connecting this wing to the main house.
A detached office was used to oversee construction of the house. Various
utilitarian outbuildings would have been constructed soon to house animals,
carriages, and so forth. A children's playhouse was also constructed in 1848.
Later additions included a two-story servants' house and a two-story bedroom
wing, a barn, garage and tool shed. When the detached kitchen wing was
demolished about 1884, the servants' house was moved and attached as the new
kitchen; the office was also attached to the rear to become a bedroom and
bathroom. Two fireplaces in the main house were closed, three windows were
added, and one window was converted to a doorway. Few houses of this era remain
with so few interior alterations. The front porch was changed at least twice,
first in the 1880s when it was widened. Probably in the 1920s, the porch columns
were changed to short square columns on brick piers. About 1960, the current
playhouse was reconstructed using materials from various historic Little Rock
houses.
Landscaping
Early drawings, maps, and written records indicate that the house always had
a straight front walk, first wood planks, then gravel, later flagstone. A
carriage drive entered the rear from Sixth Street, with a circular turnaround.
An orchard, beds for vegetables, herbs, and berries were included, with service
buildings in the rear. Ornamentals enhanced the front yard. A white picket fence
surrounded the property.
Gardening has long been popular with Little Rock residents. As early as 1849,
visitors commented on roses, native flowers, exotic shrubbery, and arbors with
vines, fruits, and berries.
Travelers brought back plants with them; nurseries shipped bare-root plants
in, and local nurseries were established by the 1850s. The sharing of cuttings
and seeds was popular at this early time, as it still is.
William Woodruff introduced crepe myrtles to the town; cuttings of these
historic plants were transferred to Curran Hall long ago. Several houses had
boxwoods clipped in ornamental shapes or hedges. Fragrance and utility seem to
have guided choices of plants for the ornamental and kitchen gardens. All owners
seemed to love roses.
Curran Hall's landscape has been documented several times. Included were a
wide variety of hardy Southern trees, shrubs, vines, and bulbs. Fruit trees,
vines, and berries were also noted.
Today's landscape is designated the Marjem Ward Jackson Historic Garden. In
developing a landscape plan to fit both the antebellum house and its 21st
century adaptive use, the designer included styles and plant stock that were
appropriate to Little Rock in the 1840s but are also hardy and easy to maintain
in this public setting.
A clipped boxwood parterre lines the front walk. Mixed flowering shrubs
define the outer boundaries, with grass between. Bulbs and seasonal color will
be added beneath the shrubs and inside the parterre. Camellias mark the outside
corners; one is original to the site. Crepe myrtle allées define the east and
west sides of the house. Historic crepe myrtles were moved to the rear around
the "office." (Foundation plantings were not widely used until the 1870s and
1880s.)
Fruit trees, roses, and perennials, some originally on the site, grow around
the playhouse and on the back fences. The oval in the parking lot, echoing the
circular carriage drive, has hardy perennials and annuals. The parking lot is
surrounded with native shrubs and trees. Flowers and berries will attract bees,
butterflies, and birds. Both brick and flagstone continue to be used for paths,
some edged in boxwood.
Since 1996, Pulaski County Master Gardeners have helped identify historic
plants, kept in "foster care" certain plants, and have researched plants
historic to Little Rock in the 1840s, as well as those growing at Curran Hall.
Master Gardeners will help maintain the restored gardens and add seasonal color,
retaining the spirit of an historic garden in a public setting.
John Greer, of Witsell, Evans & Rasco, restoration architect
Becky Thompson, Greenwoman Gardens,garden design
Carolyn Newbern, Pulaski County Master Gardener, garden project chair
John Gill, president, Little Rock Visitor Information Center Foundation, Inc.
Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau
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