The Crown Jewel of Crown Heights

Hello again, dear friends! There are pockets of gorgeous homes all throughout the United States and throughout the world, but when my friend Torrance and I drove up to visit a couple of garden centers this week, we pushed on to visit Crown Heights in Oklahoma City…

Built during the 1930’s and into the 1940’s and 1950’s, Crown Heights and eventually its sister neighborhood, Edgemere Heights, were upscale neighborhoods where doctors and Oklahoma City leaders first lived. There is a nice history on the Crown Heights/Edgemere Heights web page where I learned about the neighborhood and would you believe lots were offered at $750 each back then?

But my main reason for a tour through the neighborhood was to see if I could drive by the home of a favorite YouTube gardener, Linda Vater.

Linda’s home is to me the crown jewel of these two neighborhoods

Constructed of stone and brick in Tudor style, her home has a historical plaque dated 1935 set into its doorway. Linda has been gardening here for over 30 years and is a self-taught gardener (but you’d never know it!). She has a book coming out for new and long-time gardeners alike, plus her home has been featured in many magazines over the years.

If you’ve ever watched Linda’s YouTube channel, then you’ve seen her garden transform from season to season. In spring her front yard is a mass of tulips and azaleas blooming in whites, pinks and other soft colors befitting the English style of her home.

Here in summertime, pink roses are blooming while other plants have quieted down to summer greens. This year is a recovery year for so many gardeners across the midwest due to the Arctic freeze in February which killed so many of our plants. This yard is rebuilding, too.

Linda’s and her neighbor’s yards throughout Oklahoma City were double-hit with the freeze and a freak ice storm late in the fall. Her 100 year old oak tree. seen to the left in the first photograph above, lost many of its limbs because of this first blast, then the plantings underneath were hit again during the winter deep freeze. You’d never know it here as she has replanted many of the azaleas along the front patio wall (some a gift from Southern Living Plants, whom she is a spokesperson). She has also been nursing the surviving boxwood balls back to health, too. That’s why some look “wooly.”

Just gorgeous!!!

It’s not just Linda Vater’s home which is lovely, but the whole area is just beautiful with many neighbors having lovely gardens!

Torrance and I were ogling the whole area, deciding which houses we’d like to live in. 😉 It had just rained (was still dripping a little drizzle) as we drove through and this lent a nice quiet overcast with no shadows, good for photographing each home!

I loved all the gables, porticos, side porches, brick pathways, mullioned windows, and of course the gardens!

We turned a corner onto an adjoining street and found this home having its slate roof redone. Isn’t this Colonial Revival home pretty? (Or could it be a little Federal??) I love the adjoining room(s) above the garage.

I was actually surprised at really how small some of the homes actually are. Cameras and especially certain lenses really add depth and scale to homes, so I thought Linda’s home was bigger and further apart from her neighbors’ homes, but really it isn’t. She is always saying that her backyard is really pretty small, though it looks quite large on camera.

Torrance thought that these homes must be deeper than wider and sit into their respective backyards, which is quite likely. Most were just average size homes (to today’s standards). They would have been quite grand during the 1930’s ~ probably why those doctors and city leaders lived here!

Coming along another street, we found this backyard garden with its incredible brick and wrought iron fencing… I loved the fencing! Torrance loved the tall orange-striped tiger which was inside the back iron gate (she took a photo; I didn’t).

I would LOVE to do something like this at our home, but…

Yeah… ($$$)

I might be able to add some “windows” into our wooden fencing with a few wrought aluminum pieces, though. 🙂

Just a really pretty neighborhood set into an older part of Oklahoma City…

Then we found the Crown Heights obelisk marker… A perfect addition to our home dream-shopping trip!!!

And some pretty garden areas along the city streets as we made our way to the freeway headed towards home… and a nice double-decker pizza restaurant we will have to try out another time. ;)’

Thought you’d enjoy a tour of Crown Heights and a drive-by… 😉

Happy dreaming!

Barb 🙂