Garvan Woodland Gardens

Garvan Woodland Gardens covers 210 acres and about four and a half miles of Lake Hamilton shoreline. Arthur Cook bought the land in the 1920s for its timber, and when Arkansas Power and Light built Carpenter Dam, the rising water turned it into a peninsula. Verna Garvan, a self-taught gardener and conservationist, spent more than thirty years building a personal garden there. After her husband Patrick died in 1975, she decided to open it to the public.

She signed a trust agreement on November 11, 1985, giving the University of Arkansas School of Architecture the job of running the gardens, and kept control until she died on October 1, 1993. The university renamed the place Garvan Woodland Gardens in 2000, and it opened to the public with a dedication on April 7, 2002. The first building was the Verna C. Garvan Pavilion, an open-air structure of redwood and native stone by E. Fay Jones and Maurice Jennings. The Anthony Chapel, a six-story chapel with a carillon tower, followed in September 2006.

Other features include the Garden of the Pine Wind, a Japanese-style rock and stream garden, a 1.5-mile shoreline trail, a 45-acre bird sanctuary and the Evans Tree House, which opened in 2018. Anthony Chapel hours vary and can change without notice.