Clovis Botanical Garden’s latest expansion was decades in the making. Look inside
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Clovis Botanical Garden unveils 2,500-sq-ft visitor center after 30-year effort.
- Design by Arthur Dyson uses wood and glass to enhance function and durability.
- Anonymous donor fully funded center after viewing plans at 2023 builder’s exhibit.
The founders of the Clovis Botanical Garden long envisioned it would include a visitor center to welcome people to one of the region’s most breathtaking attractions when they first presented their idea to the Clovis City Council in 1993.
Three decades later, a local architect and a group of dedicated patrons helped make that a reality.
The garden’s 2,500-square-foot new visitor center, which is next to Dry Creek Park, is designed by local architect Arthur Dyson and stands out for its wooden ceiling and exterior featuring several extreme angles.
“It’s pretty much like a lot of the plants that you see there. What they specialize in is either indigenous plants or plants that are readily adaptable to the Valley that are drought-tolerant and don’t require a lot of water,” Dyson told The Bee. “Most of them are very spiky, like cactus and a lot of flowers in that way.”
Dyson said wood was purposefully used to build the center to minimize the building’s long-term maintenance needs. Other materials, such as glass, metal, or concrete, are more likely to deteriorate in the outdoor environment.
The building also includes a retractable glass wall that separates the interior of the structure from the outside terrace. Dyson said it adds flexibility to the use of the building, doubling the meeting space when needed.
The Clovis Botanical Garden’s new visitor center will open in September with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The garden’s board directors are soliciting donations to furnish the visitor center.
Anne Clemons, president of the Clovis Botanical Garden’s board of directors, said the visitor center will house a reception area, gift shop and refreshment bar with coffee, soft drinks and packaged snacks, as well as spaces for educational displays, which will also be available for rent.
“Right now, it’s (visiting hours) are pretty much limited to spring and fall, because everything (else) is outdoors and it gets too hot or too cold. We’ll have a space for year-round events,” she said.
A visitor center was a shared dream of the garden’s founders and its community of volunteers since they envisioned building a garden in the early 1990s, Clemons said. Since then, the garden has expanded from one acre to four acres home to over 400 kinds of plants, but volunteers still sign in at a makeshift kiosk built by scouts, and visitors use mobile toilets at the back of the garden.
When the group finally began to plan for the visitor center, Clemons and some other board members went to a builder’s exhibit in 2023, where Dyson led a session on sustainable buildings.
“So we thought, ‘well, maybe we’ll get somebody that can paint the walls,’ and I introduced myself, told him we were starting to think about building a visitor center and hope we could get some help here,” Clemons said. “And then Arthur Dyson said, ‘Happy to help you.’”
However, the pandemic hit and the board could only run a fundraiser outdoors in mid-summer. Despite generous donations from some large donors and organizations, the board was $1 million short of the estimated $2 million cost for completing the project.
The project took a leap forward after Dyson introduced the design to the board and some potential donors. One donor was so captivated by the center’s designs she wrote a check to cover the project’s remaining costs, Dyson said.
Some of the building’s facilities are named after major donors, Clemons said. The visitor center will be named after the benefactor who made the largest donation.
“She called me the next day and said that she was really taken by the design, and asked how much it would cost, and I told her, and she says, ‘Well, I’ll write a check for it, but I want to remain anonymous at that time,’” Dyson said. “That’s how that came out. This group didn’t have any money, but they had a dream, and sometimes that’s all it takes.”
