Club Estates Garden Club: Eighty Years of Devotion at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home-Atlanta

By: Deborah Proctor

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home and Club Estates Garden Club

An 80 Year Relationship of Service

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home (OLPHH) opened its doors in Atlanta in 1939. It was housed in a Victorian building built in 1889, the former home of the Hebrew Orphan’s Asylum. It is located on Pollard Boulevard south of downtown Atlanta and across a side street from what used to be called Turner Field and now is Center Parc Credit Union Stadium, owned by Georgia State University.

Photo courtesy of Deb Proctor

At the time, OLPHH was referred to as the “Free Cancer Home” and “The Home for the Incurables” due to its mission to provide a non-denominational home for terminally ill cancer patients. It is operated by the Hawthorne Dominican Sisters and is supported solely by donations.

By 1946 the grounds had been neglected for many years and were riddled with bare ground and erosion. Literally every vestige of plant life except trees had ceased to exist during the hard years of the Depression and then the War Years. The Club Estates Garden Club of Brookhaven, which was founded in 1939, the same year that the Home opened in Atlanta, became aware of the Home’s great mission and the need to provide it with a healing environment. However, the women had plans beyond just planting pretty flowers. Over the first ten years, eroded slopes were graded, soil was brought in, walkways were constructed, flowering shrubs, perennials and annuals were planted and two patios were constructed adjacent to a bird sanctuary. The Club established the Home as its main philanthropy and began support for the Home with donations of time and money, maintaining what they had developed for what would be the next 80 years.

photo courtesy of Deb Proctor

The Club focused not only on the exterior landscape of the Home but on the interior environment as well. After almost 20 years of service in Atlanta the Home was still in the original 1889 building. It was a daily if not hourly challenge for the Sisters to communicate from floor to floor and from one end of the old building to the other. They were in desperate need of an efficient way to communicate, so in 1965 the Club organized the donation and installation of a state-of-the-art intercom system. It was completed just before Christmas 1965, with the added surprise of providing music throughout the Home. As carols drifted through the halls, heralding the coming Christ-child, the gift from the Club was proclaimed “a Christmas Miracle.”

In 1976 a 10-foot diameter brick fountain was installed in the back garden at the feet of a statue of St. Francis, providing a gardening focal point and the soothing sounds of water. After the initial installation and through the early 1980’s, Club Estates continued to landscape and install a system of brick walks around the fountain. In 1985 another major project, St. Dominic’s Garden, was installed at the entrance to the Cancer Home, including a much-needed irrigation system. St. Dominic is the patron Saint of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne. The Club received a first place HANDS Award at the Garden Club of Georgia State Convention in 1986 for the project.

In 1987 a rose garden was installed and the blooms graced the bedside tables of the patients for many years. In 1988 flowering trees were planted on the eastern slope behind the Cancer Home, replacing several decades of Urban “vacant lot” volunteers.

By the early 1990s the Cancer Home successfully fought Ted Turner’s plans to have the Home’s entire property (a city block) condemned for the proposed 1996 Centennial Olympic Stadium/new Turner Field Braves’ Stadium parking lot! The property is 100 feet across a side street from (the then) Turner Field. In 1997, the Club planted large trees along the property line, including pines, magnolias and Cryptomeria to decrease the visual impact of the looming stadium.

Healing Gardens: Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home

Meditation Chapel and Garden, 2001 - 2025

In the Fall of 2000, the Club received a request from Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home to create (design and build) an outdoor garden structure to house the Home’s 7’ by 8’ bronze and oak crucifix that was being relocated from the Home’s Chapel. A design was conceived by a Club member based on a medieval English timber-frame structure called a lichgate. Lichgates were covered passageways or gateways between the village and the churchyards, marking the boundary between the sacred and the secular. The vertical nature of the lichgate’s gable proved to be the perfect proportion and scale to fit the cross, while hewn log, timber-framed construction complimented the cross’s artistic style. By spring 2001 conceptual plans had been presented to and approved by the Club and the Sisters.

photo courtesy of Deb Proctor

Fundraising began in earnest in April 2001 at the first of two annual Garden Auction Luncheons held at Capital City Club Brookhaven. Club members all contributed silent auction items and worked in teams to create lavish, themed centerpieces to be auctioned in the live auction. Club members and their invited guests enjoyed luncheons and high-energy auctions that netted the Club excellent proceeds. It was at the 2002 Garden Auction Luncheon that Club Estates received a $30,000 grant from the Auxiliary Board of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home to assist in covering the costs for the huge project. This grant enabled the Club to move forward plus the $35,000 that it had raised to date.

Many hours were spent designing, planning, and coordinating with architects, engineers, and contractors for the timber frame construction of the outdoor Chapel. Surber Barber Choate & Hertlein Architects and Weems Doar Engineers made in-kind donations of their services and transformed the conceptual drawings into construction plans. Master timber craftsman, Michael Goldberg, of Wild Goose Projects was hired to make the construction plans reality. The timbers were hewn over a 10-month period out of native Georgia White Oaks that were saplings during the Revolution.

With the dedication by Archbishop John F. Donoghue set for October 28, 2003, the die was cast. The foundation was poured; the structure was erected and the gardens planted by Club members in just 26 days! A true labor of love by all.

The following tribute by Deb Proctor at the dedication captures the essence of the project:

The vision of Sister Florence, which was brought forth by the collective efforts of the Garden Club, the Auxiliary and by the artistry of master timber craftsman, Michael Goldberg, stands before you as the Meditation Chapel and Gardens. May it serve as a spot for peaceful solitude and quiet contemplation for all who come here: patients, family, volunteers and the Sisters and staff of the Home. And may it also shine forth as a beacon, a gateway, to the surrounding community and as a testimony to the mission of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne.

Following the completion and dedication of this ambitious project, the Club Estates Garden Club of Brookhaven received First Place in Georgia, the Deep South District and at the National Garden Club Convention in 2004 for “Gardening for the Disabled.”

St. Dominic’s Garden, 2008

Twenty-three years after designing and installing the award-winning St. Dominic’s Garden at the Home’s entrance drive, the Club planned and executed a full demolition and replacement. The original Burford Hollies had become so overgrown that they had to be removed with chains and a Bobcat!

A new design based on the sacred symbol of the Holy Trinity, three interlocking circles, was executed in Wintergreen boxwoods. The intersection of the three circles was centered on the statue of St. Dominic. Contrasting variegated and solid Liriope accented the areas within the circles, creating a simple, yet elegant, low maintenance garden, accented with seasonal plantings of colorful annuals. The planting was completed by a group of CEGC members in the early spring of 2008. During winter of 2009, the Club received an email from the Sisters, saying that when they gazed out the window the night before to see the snow coming down, there, before them beautifully highlighted by the snow was the perfect symbol of the Trinity.

In the Fall of 2025, CEGC donated $5,000 to landscape the front entrance sign and to rejuvenate and upgrade the Meditation Chapel Garden. A dedicated Club member together with a professional landscape crew, installed new Autumn ferns, Lenten roses, Blue Angel hostas, Wintergreen boxwoods, Gardenia radicans, Oak Leaf hollies, Annabelle hydrangeas along with 400 Daffodil bulbs and winter annual beds. CEGC also secured an “angel” donor for the installation of up-lighting for the front entrance sign and extended irrigation to the new landscaping.

photo courtesy of Deb Proctor

· Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home (from 1946): Dominant project for 80 years, landscaping and creating healing gardens for terminally ill cancer patients.

· 1950s–60s – Extensive landscaping, patio and bird sanctuary installed at the Home.

· 1965 – Club funded an intercom/music system for the Home, called a “Christmas Miracle.”

· 1976: Installed illuminated 10-ft fountain at Cancer Home; later landscaped walks and gardens.

· 1985–1988: Installed St. Dominic’s Garden, rose garden, flowering trees.

· 2001–2003: Designed and built Meditation Chapel & Garden at Cancer Home, a $65,000+ project; won national award for “Gardening for the Disabled.”

· 75th Anniversary (2014): Dedicated new $7,500 landscaping project at Cancer Home’s fountain and Champion Black Oak Tree;

· 2025-2026: Rejuvenated the landscaping with new Autumn ferns, Lenten roses, Blue Angel hostas, Wintergreen boxwoods, radicans Gardenias along with Winter annuals. Installed up-lighting for Meditation Chapel and front entry sign. Extended irrigation for beds

Total donations to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home: +/- $130,000