The Philip Hulitar Sculpture Garden
and the Four Arts Gardens
The Gardens are open every day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Additional hours may be available during the summer months; call (561) 655-7227 for details.
There is no charge for admission. Please leave pets at home.
Garden Tours:
Tours of the Garden are availble through Visit Palm Beach. These hour and a half excursions will take you through the gardens and provide an in-depth look at the history and treasures hidden beneath shady leaves and colorful plant beds. Led by a horticulturist, these tours are an informative "must" for any garden lover. Call (561) 881-7844 for reservations and information.
Do you have a laptop computer?
Portions of the garden are covered under the King Library's wireless internet network, providing a beautiful and peaceful setting for you to work outdoors! For additional information, please contact the library at (561) 655-2766.
About The Philip Hulitar Sculpture Garden
Click here for a map with plant labels!
The enhanced sculpture garden of the Society of the Four Arts honors the memory of a creative and public-spirited leader.
Philip Hulitar was a prominent American couturier and Palm Beach resident who restored several historic houses here. The garden’s evolution, from a trio of vacant lots with tangled vines and scrub palms to its magnificence today, is a continuing tribute to his vision.
In March 1965, Four Arts members learned that the property at the corner of Royal Palm Way and Cocoanut Row was about to be sold to a Jacksonville grocery-store chain. Eager to acquire the land, Four Arts members swung into action. Just two days before the sale was to proceed, Walter Gubelmann, then president of The Four Arts, made an offer to the owners of the property, the Walton family: to match the price offered by the Davis Brothers grocery store chain.
In just one weekend, pledges for the required amount were raised by telephone. The lot was acquired the following Monday morning, according to legend – just before the Davis Brothers’ lawyers arrived for the closing. Subsequently, in1967 and 1968, the Society bought the two adjoining lots.
SKETCHING A PLAN
By Spring 1979 the combined lots, although saved by The Four Arts, were still unimproved. Mrs. John Clifford Folger, then chairman of The Four Arts Landscape Committee, discussed with Philip Hulitar the need for beautification, and a plan emerged to establish a sculpture garden. Mr. Hulitar sketched a design for a garden wall, and when the town accepted his plan, Mrs. Folger presented a gift to the Society to cover the cost of the wall and a sprinkler system to sustain plantings along its length.
Work on the wall was completed in November 1980. Gifts from Mrs. Folger, Mr. and Mrs. F. Warrington Gillet, Jr., Marjorie Whittemore and others fueled the growth of the sculpture garden; Philip Hulitar eagerly solicited donations of sculpture from friends and Four Arts members. In 1988, he and his wife, Mary, presented a generous gift to The Society of the Four Arts for the garden’s continued maintenance.
In 1988, in recognition of his years as chairman of the sculpture garden and as a Trustee of The Four Arts, its Board voted to honor Mr. Hulitar by naming the sculpture garden for him. He spoke briefly at the dedication ceremony held on the Library patio that spring.
PROTECTING HIS LEGACY
Philip Hulitar, whose artistic creativity, vision and commitment were responsible for turning three vacant lots into a handsome sculpture garden, died in 1992.
His wife, Mary, remained active in supporting and maintaining the garden, and today carries on the legacy of her husband. (Most recently, she endowed the Welcome Garden, the oval planting area which greets visitors within the main gate at Cocoanut Row.)
In February 2002, The Four Arts announced plans to enhance the Hulitar Sculpture garden by adding park-like elements: new walkways and plantings, fountains and seating, security and event lighting, an elegant plaza and fountain, and a handsome garden pavilion. The landscape architecture firm Morgan Wheelock, Inc. was chosen for the job in April 2003 and ground broken in early 2004. Now, as construction draws to a close, another chapter opens in the history of the Hulitar Sculpture Garden. Philip Hulitar’s planning, imagination and hard work continue to be reflected in its progress, however. We believe, as former Mayor Lesly Smith observed to Four Arts Trustees in late 2004, that Mr. Hulitar “would be proud to see his vision continued in this new and beautiful way.”
The enhanced Hulitar Sculpture Garden has been carefully designed to serve The Four Arts and the Palm Beach community as an outdoor museum, as a handsome urban park, as a botanical garden and as a gathering space for concerts, social occasions and other events. Starting with relatively few works on display, the Society’s curator, advised by its Art Acquisition Committee, will populate the garden carefully, adding only works judged to be of high artistic quality.
SCULPTURE IN THE PHILIP HULITAR SCULPTURE GARDEN
Felipe Castaneda (1933 - )
Mexican
Maternidad La Cuava,
Homage to Zuniga, 1976
Bronze
81.13 Gift of Mrs. Richard Harrison Hill,
Philip Hulitar, Mrs. Bradford A. Whitimore
Diana Guest ( d. 1994)
American
Naja, 1979
Bronze
80.2 Gift of the Artist, Diana Guest Manning
Edward Fenno Hoffman III (1916 – 1991)
American
Reaching, 1963
Bronze
90.1 In Memory of Margaret Richardson Trout,
Given by Her Family, November 21, 1990
Philip Jackson (1944 - )
English
Sior Maschera
Bronze
05.4 Gift of Reginald B. Collier
Henry Mitchell (1915 – 1980)
American
Giraffes, 1959
Bronze
81.15 Gift of Mrs. Eileen Zantzinger Holberg
In Memory of Her Husband Alfred Zantzinger
Luis Montoya, Spanish (1950 - )
Leslie Ortiz, American (1957 - )
Monumental Apple Basket, 1998
Bronze
98.1 Gift of Mary Hulitar
Dan Ostermiller (1956 - )
American
Peacock Monument, 2004
Bronze
06.2.1, 06.2.2 Gift of Mr. and Mrs.
Fitz Eugene Dixon, Jr.
Ira Bruce Reines (1957 - )
American
Neptune, 1981
Bronze
81.3 Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jack C. Massey
Jose Antonio Villalobos (1935 - )
Mexican
Youth, 1970
Bronze
80.3 Gift of Mary and Philip Hulitar
Jose Antonio Villalobos (1935 - )
Mexican
Innocence, 1971
Bronze
80.4 Gift of A. Atwater Kent Foundation
The Four Arts Gardens:
Seven Decades of Education and Pleasure
Click here for a map and plant list!
In 1938 the Garden Club of Palm Beach planted seven small demonstration gardens on the grounds of the Society of the Four Arts. For nearly seven decades, these gardens have served as a guide for new homeowners seeking plants which thrive in the sub-tropical South Florida climate. Even those with no interest in landscaping can appreciate the gardens’ quiet serenity; visitors often come just to relax and unwind from the pressures of their day.
The founders built well. Mrs. J.S. Phipps built a Spanish façade to demonstrate plantings suitable for a Spanish-style house. Mrs. Joseph F. Gunster created a moonlight garden of white-blooming vines and shrubs. Mrs. Clifford V. Brokaw landscaped an area suitable for a colonial-style house; Mrs. Lorenzo Woodhouse designed a beautiful Chinese garden as a memorial to her daughter. Mrs. Hugh Dillman planted a rose garden; Dr. LeRoy Dow, a jungle garden, and Mrs. Alfred G. Kay used a wall fountain with a Madonna sculpture as a focal point for a garden of small tropical fruit trees.
For many decades, in a long and fruitful partnership with the Garden’s owner, the Society of the Four Arts, the Garden Club of Palm Beach has maintained the gardens.
In the 1950s, the landscape architecture firm of Innocenti & Webel was retained to improve the garden’s architectural features, to relate the garden’s separate elements more closely to one another, and to create a master plan which included many rare specimen plants.
In the summer of 2004, hurricanes Frances and Jeanne all but destroyed the Four Arts Gardens. Undaunted, the Four Arts undertook a major reconstruction project that not only restored the gardens according to Innocenti & Webel’s master plan, but also added new irrigation, re-circulating pumps for fountains, a new electrical system, more comfortable seating, and improved walkways to ensure accessibility for the handicapped and safety for all visitors.
The rebuilding of the gardens has aimed not for significant change, but for a subtle and accurate restoration. Walkways have been imperceptibly widened and their foundations strengthened, and paved areas enlarged in places to accommodate new seating.
Irrigation, electrical and drainage systems have been significantly modernized, but remain hidden.
As homeowners and visitors continue to cultivate a love of gardens, the Garden Club of Palm Beach and The Four Arts Gardens continue to offer ideas and inspiration, practical education for gardeners, and moments of quiet respite to all who visit.
- Portions excerpted from “The Four Arts Garden” by Alex D. Hawkes.
