The gardens are also a U.S.historic district known as the Killearn Plantation Archeological and Historic District. It received that designation on August 16, 2002. According to the National Register of Historic Places, it contains 18 historic buildings, 4 structures and 4 objects.
History
The property associated with Maclay was part of the Lafayette Land Grant. In antebellum times, it was part of the Andalusia Plantation, growing cotton. Starting in 1882 a vineyard on the property produced wine, until Leon County voted to go dry in 1904. After that it was a quail-hunting estate called Lac-Cal.
In 1923, New York financier Alfred Barmore Maclay (1871–1944), the son of Robert Maclay, and his wife, Louise Fleischman, purchased the 1,935 acres (783 ha) Lac-Cal quail-hunting plantation and adjoining land, creating a 3,760 acres (1,520 ha)-estate he called Killearn, after his ancestral village and birthplace of his great-grandfather in Scotland. Maclay developed the gardens continuously until his death. His wife continued their development, opened them to the public in 1946, and in 1953 donated some 307 acres (1.24 km2) of their estate, including the gardens, to a predecessor of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. In 1965 the gardens were renamed in Maclay's honor, to avoid confusion with the new adjacent development called Killearn Estates.
Biology
Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park with Lake Hall in background, February 2011.
At the front of the gardens is a Native Plant Arboretum that's maintained by the Magnolia Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society, which includes Piedmont azaleas, Florida flame azaleas, Eastern red columbine, white wild indigo, English dogwood, and Florida anise.
The 1909 Maclay House has been furnished to appear as during the residence of the Maclays. The house is open for tours during high blooming season from January through April.
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