Conservation Work & Houses

Francis M. Minor Children's House
Francis M. Minor Gate

Francis M. Minor Children's House

Brooklyn Botanical Garden

Conservation of the exterior and restoration of the interior of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden Children’s House adjacent to the Children’s Garden. Designed by the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White in 1917 to serve as an auxiliary building to the Children’s Garden, where each child planned, planted, tended and harvested his or her own vegetables in an individual plot.

Past a wood trellis entry gate, the building contains a front entry porch, a classroom for rainy day instructions, flower arranging and cooking demonstrations, a tool room for storage of children’s tools, a cooking pantry, a locker room and a rear assembly porch.

A typical planting day consisted of the smallest child riding to the Garden House in a wheelbarrow. As the children approached the House, a flag would be raised and the children would enter through the trellis gate and go to their garden plots where they would find their tools laid out.

  • historical image 1
  • historical image 2