Kampong

About this property

The Kampong is a botanical garden in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Florida, United States. It is one of the five gardens of the non-profit National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG). It is open Tuesday through Saturday (9:00am-3:00pm). Visitors are encouraged to make reservations to visit, though tickets can be purchased on site. The Kampong was bought as a winter home by the famed horticulturalist David Fairchild and his wife Marian in 1916. For many years he managed the Department of Plant Introduction program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., searching the world for plants that could be useful and successfully introduced into the United States. Fairchild introduced around 30,000 plant species and varietals into the U.S. At his home in Florida, Fairchild created a garden that contained many of the plants that he obtained throughout his trips. In 1931 Marian's sister Elsie and her husband, Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, acquired the adjoining property on the north to use as their winter home. Fairchild and his wife made the Kampong their permanent home from 1928 until their deaths in 1954 and 1962 respectively. A year after David Fairchild's wife's death, the land was purchased by Catherine Hauberg Sweeney, a botanist and preservationist. Sweeney maintained Fairchild's garden and was vital in its preservation for future use and study, securing its listing on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1984 Sweeney donated the property to the then Pacific Tropical Botanical Garden (now National Tropical Botanical Garden), and remained its principal sponsor until her death in 1995. The Kampong's first director from July 1996 to February 1998, Thomas Lodge, oversaw completion of The Fairchild-Sweeney House renovations. He also was key in researching David Fairchild's role in the establishment of Everglades National Park. Larry Schokman served as Mrs. Sweeney's superintendent for 11 years, until 1984 when The Kampong became part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG), and Schokman became an NTBG employee. As director of horticulture and then assistant director under Lodge, Schokman maintained a close working and personal relationship with Sweeney until her death in 1995. He became director of The Kampong in 1998 and retired in August 2007. He died in October 2017. Following Schokman, David Lee was director of The Kampong from 2007 to 2009. Lee was formerly the chair of biological sciences at Florida International University, where he worked for 26 years. Lee helped to safeguard The Kampong's southern boundary from development encroachment, and provided guidance for The Kampong's board of governors.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Miami-Dade County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Miami-Dade County.

More historic places in Florida

Browse all historic places in Florida.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Florida history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.