March’s Yard of the Month award goes to beautiful courtyard grounds at Southside Preservation Hall, 1519 Lipscomb Street.   SPH is housed in a red brick Tudor-Gothic Revival former church, designed in 1909 by WC Meador and completed in 1911 for Fort Worth’s Central Methodist congregation (fortwortharchitecture.com).  Tudor-Gothic Revival often features herringbone brickwork, large mullioned windows, stucco gables, pitched roofs, and arched doors.  The present-day ballroom, once the fellowship hall, came in 1922; the Sunday School halls were built in 1923; and offices and administration were added in the 1950’s (McDermott, Fort Worth’s Fairmount District).  The final addition was the Rose Chapel, designed by C. O. Chromaster in 1954, on the site of the CMC’s former parsonage (McDermott).  It has some Tudor features, like the arched door, but is clad in a limestone-colored Tennessee Crab Orchard Stone, rather than red brick.  The chapel was originally called Martha C. Nored Chapel, in honor of a donor’s mother.

After the CMC moved out of the Southside in 1969, they sold the structure in 1972 to the Panther Boys Club for $125,000, taking the splendid stained-glass windows from the sanctuary with them to their new home (fortwortharchitecture.com). The Boys Club set up a gym and boxing ring in the former sanctuary, and used the space to promote character development, physical fitness, and responsible citizenship (www.thepantherclub.org). PBC used the facility until 1995, when they requested a permit for demolition to build a parking lot.  Three Fairmount preservationists went to the hearing to object to the demolition of the largest structure in our National Register Historic District. Happily, the Boys and Girls Club representatives agreed to donate the building to another nonprofit rather than tear it down.  After contacting schools, churches, theater groups and other nonprofits, the Fairmount preservationists found that no one wanted the building because it needed repairs.  Michael McDermott and Rose Lynn Scott then formed a 501 (C) (3) non-profit, the Southside Preservation Association, and bought the building for just $10. The dedicated labor of Fairmount and Community Service volunteers transformed the multi-use spaces through many hours of volunteer work, which included removing debris and graffiti. Fairmount resident Ted Lovato taught classes where participants made the stained-glass windows for the Rose Chapel (southsidepreservation.com).  In exchange for a generous donation, Fairmount residents Berlene and Gerry Milburn named the chapel the Rose Chapel after the flower of love.

Rose Lynn Scott, a longtime Fairmounter and current Portland, Oregon resident, maintains a busy calendar for Southside Preservation Hall:  FNA meetings, feral cat rescue meetings, memorial services, Mardi Gras balls, Bridal Shows, Big Band concerts and Swing Dance lessons.  And of course, the Rose Chapel is a perennially popular site for a beautiful wedding.  Last year, Shirley and Larry Brock, who married in the Nored Chapel in 1957, renewed their vows in the Rose Chapel for their 60^th anniversary (southsidepreservation.com).

Rose Lynn Scott, an avid gardener, supervises the maintenance of the SPH gardens.  Fairmount veterans will recall that Scott also hosted annual plant sales in the Hall until 2006.  The motto of the sale, “Plants that WORK for Fort Worth,” enabled many of us to landscape our gardens with proven natives, perennials, and herbs.  Rose Lynn is adept at both native landscaping and succession planting, and with the invaluable help of Community Service Volunteers is constantly pruning, thinning and adding more plants.   Spring is one of the most spectacular times on the SPH grounds.  Several types of narcissus, including yellow daffodils and paperwhites, are currently opening along the hand-laid brick pathways.  Planters flanking the chapel door are filled with cold-tolerant pansies, violas and germander, an evergreen herb in the mint family. In March, German bearded irises will flower in a spectrum of purples and pinks.

Along the paths, ruellia simplex, or Mexican petunias, variegated liriope, Texas Gold columbine, and multiple salvias add spots of bright color. The central courtyard has a green lawn ending in an arbor for outdoor vows, lined with evenly spaced concrete planters and benches.  Closer to June, heat-tolerant Natchez white cinnamon bark crepe myrtles (lagerstroemia indica) will blossom along Lipscomb Street.   Behind them, a long row of Texas silver leaf sage (leucophyllum frutescens) blush mauve after a rain.  At the top of the stairs leading to the old Sunday School and in front of the Rose Chapel, chaste trees (vitex agnus-castus) droop with lilac clusters each May.  At their feet, several hawthorn bushes are putting out white blossoms.  Thornless cacti were recently planted around the new sandstone patios in front.

Like many established Gardens in Fort Worth, including the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens, SPH lost dozens of antique rose bushes to the devastating mite-borne disease, Rose Rosette, which causes the plant to develop a “witches’ broom” appearance.  After several years with no roses, this year the SPH ventured to re-plant antique roses again, starting with 10 beautiful Earth Kind Belinda’s Dream roses generously donated by Fairmount resident Brenda Pereda.

Our thanks, and a $25 gift certificate for Calloway’s Nursery, go to Southside Preservation Hall.

The Fairmount Yard of the Month committee is Leah Suasnovar and Bonnie Blackwell, who offer their sincere thanks to Rose Lynn Scott for her help in the writing and editing of this essay.