FROM APRIL 2006
Saving Chandor:
When Chandor Gardens went on
the block, one Weatherford woman
set out to save it.
SPONSORED BY CHANDOR GARDENS
BY MARSHA BROWN
PHOTO BY LES LOPEZ
I
trip) was the first time I actually saw the gardens.”
The sad end to the Chandors’ love affair came abruptly
when Douglas died from a stroke in 1953. It was then
that Ina changed the name [of the gardens] to Chandor
Gardens, in honor of Douglas. She lived alone for almost
a quart er of a century. After her death the gardens, along
with the home, sat abandoned for nearly two decades,
falling into disrepair.
In the mid-1990s, Chuck and Melody Bradford bought
Chandor Gardens and restored them both. Once again,
school children toured the gardens, couples were married
there, and the Bradfords permitted some social events to
be held in the garden.
“They did such a beautiful job of restoring the gardens
to their original splendor,” Bodiford said. “The Bradfords
became my heroes.”
One morning while Bodiford read her Sunday paper
she spotted an ad announcing that the property was for
sale. Tears came to her eyes. “I became physically ill,”
she said. “I just knew some developer from Dallas would
buy it and do who knows what with it. The Bradfords had
purchased the property when it was in decline; they had
renovated it and brought it back to life. When they put it
on the market I was so afraid it was in danger of being lost
forever.”
Bodiford, who was newly elected to the Weatherford
City Council at the time, sprang into action. Fortunately,
she wasn’t alone in viewing Chandor Gardens as a local
treasure. She initiated a grassroots campaign to save it. At
first, all of her efforts seemed hopeless.
“It was just after 9-11,” she said. “The city council had
DECEMBER 2015 PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
t began as a reminder of a distant homeland and a
tribute to a fascinating woman, as well as a testament to
lasting devotion. It flourished for decades, but like many
dreams, it began to fade with time. It could have become
a vacant field or a housing development. It might have
even become a shopping center — far from the intended
vision of the two people who literally planted the seeds
of Chandor Gardens. When Chandor Gardens went on
the market in 2001, one woman set out to save it. Jamie
Bodiford’s love affair with Chandor Gardens began when,
as a first-grader at Travis Elementary School, she visited
the famed garden on a field trip.
“We walked across the pond on the millstones under
a canopy of wisteria,” she said. “Doyle Lee fell into the
pond. It was nothing short of magical.”
Of course, Bodiford knew about the Chandors,
Douglas and Ina. Their story made the gardens more
intriguing to her. She’d heard all about the whirlwind
courtship between the Texas lawyer’s daughter and the
British portraitist. She knew how the couple had met
at a party in Manhattan and married in Weatherford (at
All Saints Episcopal Church, 1934). She was aware that
after they married a piece of property next door to Ina’s
mother’s home became their wedding present. They built
their home there and Douglas labored to create exquisite
formal gardens from what had been pastureland. Jamie
heard of the Chandors’ travels abroad, their royal friends
and business associates and, of course, their parties.
Already a world-famous portraitist, Douglas Chandor’s
most renowned work came after he married Ina, including
a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill painted in 1946, which
hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian
Institution; a 1947 painting of Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
also in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian;
Eleanor Roosevelt from 1949, which is part of the White
House Collection; and the Coronation portrait of Queen
Elizabeth II.
“They bought a new Chrysler Imperial from my father
every two years,” Bodiford said. “My parents would
deliver the car to them and the Chandors would invite my
parents to stay for dinner at White Shadows (its original
name). Always, they served a Virginia ham. Of course,
children weren’t allowed to such dinner parties. No one
in Weatherford lived the way the Chandors lived. I heard
their names around the house, but that (first-grade field
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