|
THE TEMPLE and SODA SPRING The Soda Spring was located near the hotel entrance on the main road. Elsewhere on the resort property was the Magnesia Spring with a similar gazebo and Sulphur Spring, each noted for their medicinal properties. Sometime before 1900 a gazebo was built over the site with benches encircling the spring at its center, protected by a metal railing.
In 1922 the area was transformed when the gazebo was replaced with a type of neoclassical rotunda known as a cyclostyle. The design was similar to one seen over a sulphur spring at the Greenbrier Hotel in WV, and one that once existed over a well at the South Pavilion at Monticello. In 1923 the Olmsted Brothers of Massachusetts were contracted to extensively landscape the Homestead grounds. Their blueprints of the project identifies this rotunda as the "TEMPLE". Their proposal was that the "present lake" in front of the Temple should be filled in to create a reflecting pool in the shape of a "distorted ellipse". For much of the 20th century, the dome and pond served as the Homestead's symbolic gateway and principal landmark, visible to every guest arriving and to travelers passing by.  The images below showcase the boxwoods planted in 1923. 
Inside the Temple, a shallow circular well contained the spring as before. Clear water revealed a bed of mineral formations. Behind the spring, the hillside included a stone terrace with stairways leading to the Formal Gardens. A dark grotto behind held mineral formations and stalagmites.
Boxwoods are slow-growing and have a lifespan of 50-100 years if cared for. This 1940s view reveals the boxwoods missing and a simpler landscaping style in use. The pond is smaller in size, it appears to have been reduced to the distorted ellipse suggested by the Olmstead brothers in 1923.  By the 1960s, the surrounding foliage had matured and the area had taken on a more lush appearance. In 1973 the area changed once again when the Homestead began construction of a modern convention center on the site of the Formal Gardens behind the Temple. 
The Formal Gardens were cleared away and the stone stairways and grotto removed. Reports suggest that stalagmites from the grotto survived and remained visible in that location into the mid-1980s. Despite construction reaching within yards of the Temple it managed to escape removal for a time. Yet it was eventually removed and the pond filled in, the 1991 view below reveals the concrete base of the Temple. Ultimately, around 2000 a new building added onto the convention center landed directly over the site of the Spring. The Soda Spring was an original fixture of the Homestead. And given the resort's long reputation as a mineral spring Spa in a town called Hot Springs, it's a surprising that the Temple wasn't moved to another site on the Homestead's property or retained as a heritage site.  | |||||||||||
Datsunzgarage.us 1997-2026 |